BX  8495    .L4  M37  1909 
Meredith,  William  Henry, 
1844-1911. 

Jesse  Lee 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/jesseleemethodisOOmere 


JESSE    I.EE's   first   PREACHINT,   place   in   new  ENGLAND, 
.VORWAI.K,  CONN. 

The  Treacher  probably  stood  en  the  risinpr  ground  back  of  the 
roadside  drinkirif;  fountaia 


Jesse  Lee 


A  Methodist  Apostle 


WILLIAM  HENRY  MEREDITH 


NEW  YORK:  EATON  &  MAINS 
CINCINNATI:  JENNINGS  &  GRAHAM 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
EATON  &  MAINS. 


DEDICATED 


TO  MY 
BRETHREN  OF  THE  NEW 
ENGLAND  CONFERENCE,  OF  WHICH 
JESSE    LEE    WAS    THE   POUNDER,  AND 
WHICH    THE    GREATER    PART    OF  MY 
LIFE  HAS  BEEN  SPENT  IN  HELP- 
ING TO  CARRY  FORWARD  THE 
GOOD  WORK  SO  WELL 
BEGUN  BY  JESSE 
LEE  IN  1789 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  A  Portrait   9 

II.  Birth  and  Boyhood   13 

III.  A  Lad's  Conversion  ..."   21 

IV.  The  Methodists  Come  Along   27 

V.  A  Young  Christian  Worker   33 

VI.  A  Zealous  Local  Preacher   40 

VII.  A  Faithful  but  Not  a  Fighting 

Soldier   46 

VIII.  An  Itinerant  Preacher   53 

IX.  Sent  to  New  England   62 

X.  First  Enters  Boston   77 

XI.  Invited  to  Lynn   85 

XII.  Pioneering  in  Maine   97 

XIII.  Almost  a  Bishop   100 

XIV.  New  England  Revisited   106 

XV.  Circuit  Preacher,  and  General 

Conference  Delegate   112 

XVI.  Author,   and  Chaplain  to  Con- 
gress  119 

XVII.  From  Labor  to  Reward  124 


FOREWORD 


Sitting  down  to  my  pleasant  task,  there 
lie  before  me  the  three  chief  sources  of  in- 
formation concerning  the  remarkable  man 
and  minister  of  whom  I  am  to  write.  These 
are,  the  very  scarce  work,  by  the  subject 
of  this  biography,  A  Short  History  of  the 
Methodists  in  the  United  States  of  America 
(Baltimore,  i8io) ;  Memoir  of  the  Rev. 
Jesse  Lee,  with  Extracts  from  His  Journals, 
by  Minton  Thrift,  New  York,  1823;  and 
The  Life  and  Times  of  the  Rev.  Jesse  Lee, 
by  Leroy  M.  Lee,  D.D.,  his  nephew 
(Charleston,  S.  C,  1848).  Jesse  Lee's  own 
very  copious  manuscript  journals  were 
burned  in  the  Methodist  Book  Room  fire  in 
New  York  in  1836,  but  not  until  Thrift  had 
made  valuable  extracts  from  them,  from 
which  all  later  writers  on  Jesse  Lee  must 
quote.  If  Dr.  Leroy  M.  Lee's  book  of  517 
pages,  octavo,  is  too  small  to  set  forth  the 
character  of  such  a  great  man,  what  can 
be  expected  in  a  booklet  like  this? 


7 


CHAPTER  I 


A  PORTRAIT 

As  geography  and  chronology  are  the 
eyes  of  history,  so  a  good  steel-engraved 
or  photographed  portrait,  for  a  frontis- 
piece, is  often  a  good  mirror  for  a  biog- 
raphy. As  only  a  profile  of  the  Rev.  Jesse 
Lee  is  known  to  have  existed,  and  that  has 
been  lost  since  1825,  we  must  therefore  be 
content  with  a  pen  picture.  Making  a  com- 
posite from  his  literary  artists,  we  can 
get  a  good  idea  of  his  appearance  in  his 
prime,  and  that  must  suffice.  Look  at  him ! 
He  will  bear  looking  at.  He  was  a  Virgin- 
ian, a  stalwart,  more  than  six  feet  high, 
large,  weighing  over  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds,  and  of  a  commanding  pres- 
ence. He  had  a  goodly  figure,  a  bluff, 
hearty,  well-rounded,  genial  face,  full, 
broad,  and  clean-shaven.  His  skin  was 
fair,  his  eyes  gray,  large,  and  eloquent. 
Although  he  wore  the  Quaker-like  dress  of 
a  Methodist  preacher,  he  also  wore  upon 
his  open,  cheerful  countenance  marks  of 
tenderness,  shrewdness,  and  abounding 
9 


10  Jesse  Lee 


good  humor.  His  military  bearing  he 
brought  with  him  out  of  the  Revolutionary- 
army,  wherein  he  learned  to  endure  hard- 
ness as  a  good  soldier.  He  had  indomitable 
perseverance,  a  good  flow  of  spirits,  in- 
vincible courage,  and  a  great  deal  of  joy- 
ous religion.  He  was  a  bright,  cheerful, 
yes,  a  jolly  companion,  a  good  singer,  and 
an  excellent  preacher.  He  usually  had  two 
horses,  which,  on  account  of  his  great 
weight,  he  rode  in  turns. 

One  who  knew  him  thus  describes  him 
as  a  preacher :  ''All  who  knew  Mr.  Lee  will 
agree  that  he  was  peculiarly  fitted  for  the 
work.  He  possessed  uncommon  colloquial 
powers  and  a  fascinating  address,  calculated 
in  a  high  degree  to  prepossess  the  mind  in 
his  favor.  His  readiness  at  repartee  was 
scarcely  equaled ;  and  by  the  skillful  use 
of  this  talent  he  often  taught  those  disposed 
to  be  witty  with  him,  at  his  expense,  that 
the  safest  way  to  deal  with  him  was  to  be 
civil.  But  what  was  of  more  importance, 
he  was  fired  with  a  missionary  zeal.  The 
truth  which  had  made  him  free  he  wished 
to  proclaim  to  others,  and  especially  to  the 
inquisitive  and  enterprising  descendants  of 
the  Pilgrims.  He  did  not  doubt  but  that 
it  would  make  its  way  into  that  land  of 


A  Portrait 


11 


priests,  and  open  a  wide  field  for  action 
and  usefulness.  He  was,  moreover,  a  man 
of  great  moral  courage,  and  more  than 
ordinary  preaching  talents.  He  preached 
with  more  ease  than  any  other  man  I  ever 
knew,  and  was,  I  think,  the  best  everyday 
preacher  in  the  Connection."  Thus  wrote 
the  Rev.  Thomas  Ware. 

One  who  heard  his  first  sermon  in  New 
England  thus  describes  it :  "When  he  stood 
up  in  the  open  air  and  began  to  sing,  I 
knew  not  what  it  meant.  I  drew  near, 
however,  to  listen,  and  thought  the  prayer 
was  the  best  I  had  ever  heard.  He  then 
read  his  text,  and  began,  in  a  sententious 
manner,  to  address  his  remarks  to  the 
understanding  and  consciences  of  the 
people ;  and  I  thought  all  who  were  present 
must  be  constrained  to  say,  Tt  is  good  for 
us  to  be  here.'  All  the  while  the  people  were 
gathering  he  continued  this  mode  of  ad- 
dress, and  presented  us  with  such  a  variety 
of  beautiful  images  that  I  thought  he  must 
have  been  at  infinite  pains  to  crowd  so 
many  pretty  things  into  his  memory.  But 
when  he  entered  upon  the  subject-matter 
of  his  text,  it  was  with  such  an  easy,  natural 
flow  of  expression,  and  in  such  a  tone  of 
voice,  that  I  could  not  refrain  from  weep- 


12 


Jesse  Lee 


ing;  and  many  others  were  affected  in  the 
same  way.  When  he  was  done,  and  we  had 
an  opportunity  of  expressing  our  views  to 
each  other,  it  was  agreed  that  such  a  man 
had  not  visited  New  England  since  the 
days  of  Whitefield.  I  heard  him  again, 
and  thought  I  could  follow  him  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth."  Mr.  Lee  was  about  thirty- 
one  years  of  age  when  thus  described. 

From  these  pen  pictures  we  conclude 
that  we  now  come  to  the  brief  study  of  the 
life  and  work  of  no  ordinary  man  and 
minister  when  we  take  up  Jesse  Lee,  the 
Apostle  of  Methodism  to  New  England, 


CHAPTER  II 


BIRTH  AND  BOYHOOD 

Jesse  Lee,  though  not  high-born  and 
noble,  according  to  the  social  standards  of 
his  times,  was  well-born.  He  was  a  Vir- 
ginian, born  in  Prince  George  County, 
March  12,  1758.  His  father  and  mother, 
Nathaniel  and  Elizabeth  Lee,  were  fore- 
handed people,  living  on  their  own  farm  of 
several  hundred  acres,  "and  enough  serv- 
ants to  cultivate  them."  The  homestead 
was  about  sixteen  miles  from  Petersburg. 
Both  parents  had  Scripture  names.  They 
gave  Scripture  names  to  their  nine  children, 
Nathaniel,  Jesse,  Peter,  John,  Adam,  Abra- 
ham, Sarah,  Rebecca,  and  Mary.  These 
names  signify  fondness  for  the  Bible  on 
the  part  of  both  parents  and  grandparents. 
Jesse's  ancestry  on  both  sides  is  supposed 
to  have  been  English,  and  among  the  early 
settlers  in  Virginia.  His  parents  had  Eng- 
lish as  well  as  Bible  ideas  concerning  the 
size  of  families,  as  seen  by  their  nine  chil- 
dren. Jesse  thus  had  the  advantages  of 
being  one  of  a  large  family.  "There  is 
13 


14  Jesse  Lee 


scarcely  an  instance  of  any  only  child 
achieving  greatness,"  wrote  a  wide  observer, 
who  instanced  Napoleon  as  being  one  of 
thirteen  children,  Franklin  one  of  seventeen, 
General  Sherman  one  of  eleven,  Charles 
Dickens  one  of  eight,  Gladstone  one  of 
seven,  Wendell  Phillips  one  of  nine — ^"A 
nest  of  brothers,  with  three  sisters  in  it," 
he  calls  it.  Susannah  Wesley  was  one  of 
two  dozen,  and  John  and  Charles  Wesley 
two  of  nineteen  children, 

Jesse  Lee  was  not  born  into  a  godless 
family.  His  parents  were  nominal  Chris- 
tians. The  Anglican  Church  was  the 
Church  of  the  state.  Into  it  they  doubtless 
had  been  baptized,  and  thereby,  according 
to  its  teachings,  had  been  made  regenerate. 
Probably  each  parent  had  been  duly  con- 
firmed as  a  communicant.  Their  neighbor- 
hood was  especially  favored  in  having  near 
them  the  Rev.  Devereux  Jarratt,  a  godly 
man,  an  evangelical  preacher,  a  faithful 
pastor,  and,  when  the  Methodists  first 
appeared,  a  zealous  helper  in  their  evangel- 
istic work.  He  continued  so  until  Meth- 
odism ceased  to  be  an  annex  to  the  Angli- 
can Church,  of  which  he  was  a  priest. 
When  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was 
organized,  at  the  famous  Christmas  Con- 


Birth  and  Boyhood  15 


ference  of  1784,  Mr.  Jarratt  entirely  left 
the  Methodists.  Bath,  his  parish,  of  which 
Sappony  Church  was  the  head,  was  about 
twelve  miles  from  the  Lee  home.  Bristol 
parish  church  was  about  fifteen  miles 
away  in  another  direction.  The  Lee 
family,  including  the  older  children,  con- 
stantly attended  church.  Jones  Hole 
Clnnxh  was  only  a  few  miles  away,  and 
though  the  rector  "was  but  a  sorry  preacher, 
and  of  very  questionable  character,"  this 
seems  to  have  been  their  church  home. 
But  Mr.  Jarratt  also  preached  throughout 
that  region.  Under  his  preaching  Jesse 
Lee's  father  became  converted.  Jesse 
writes  of  this:  "In  the  latter  part  of  the 
year  1772  my  father  became  much  more 
serious,  and  more  engaged  with  God  than 
formerly.  One  day  when  his  conviction 
was  deep  and  his  distress  very  great,  he 
went  into  the  woods,  and  continued  travel- 
ing about,  and  mourning  for  his  sins,  till 
at  length  he  claimed  the  promise  of  God, 
and  by  faith  'beheld  the  Lamb  of  God  that 
'  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,'  and  was 
'justified  freely  by  the  blood  of  Jesus 
Christ.'  The  joy  he  felt  in  his  soul  he 
could  not  describe  with  words.  He  had  an 
evidence  that  his  sins  were  forgiven,  and 


,16  Jesse  Lee 


.that  he  was  born  again.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  rcHgion  in  the  family ;  and  my 
father's  conversation  about  rehgion  from 
that  time  astonished  all." 

Jesse  was  then  fourteen  years  of  age. 
His  father's  conversion  meant  much  for 
himself  and  for  the  whole  family.  His 
mother  was  brought  to  tears  and  repent- 
ance by  her  husband's  testimony.  She  was 
a  seeker  for  months,  but  one  day  while 
reading  the  New  Testament  the  Lord 
spoke  peace  to  her  soul.  Father  and  mother 
now  both  labored  for  the  conversion  of 
their  children.  The  Lee  home  became 
decidedly  Christian.  One  of  the  first  ques- 
tions settled  in  that  now  Christian  home 
seems  to  have  been  the  amusement  ques- 
tion. Jesse  Lee  writes  of  it:  "When  I 
was  a  little  turned  fourteen  years  of  age 
my  father  refused  to  go  to  any  place  of 
amusement,  and  withal  told  his  children 
they  had  better  go  no  more.  I  thought,  at 
times,  that  it  was  hard  to  be  kept  under 
such  restrictions,  inasmuch  as  I  saw  that 
other  young  people  could  go  without  being 
restrained;  but  it  was  not  long  before  my 
father  let  us  know  that  it  was  from  reli- 
gious motives  he  was  led  to  act  as  he  did. 
From  that  time  I  felt  willing  to  forego  the 


Birth  and  Boyhood  17 


vain  amusements  of  life,  and  to  conform  to 
my  father's  will."  Note  that  this  was  not 
then  a  Methodist  home.  The  chief  amuse- 
ments referred  to  were  probably  the  dance, 
cards,  and  the  play.  We  admire  the  spirit 
in  which  this  father  dealt  with  his  children 
on  this  question.  He  did  not  dictatorially 
forbid  them,  but  gave  them  his  reasons,  and 
told  them  they  "had  better  go  no  more." 
Bishop  Vincent's  little  book  on  this  subject, 
Better  Not,  had  not  then  been  written, 
but  Nathaniel  Lee's  practice  chords  with 
its  method  and  spirit. 

Among  Jesse's  boyhood  companions  were 
some  wicked  young  people;  probably  there 
was  but  little  choice  for  him.  As  moral 
standards  there  were  low.  Christian  young 
people  would  be  but  few.  As  to  how  he 
lived  among  the  young  people  of  his  boy- 
hood he  shall  speak  for  himself :  "I  do  not 
recollect  that  I  ever  swore  in  my  life, 
except  one  night,  being  in  company  with 
some  wicked  young  people,  I  uttered  some 
kind  of  oaths,  for  which  I  felt  ashamed  and 
sorry  all  the  next  day,  and  when  alone  I 
felt  that  God  was  displeased  with  me  for 
my  bad  conduct.  I  believe  I  never  did  any- 
thing in  my  youth  that  the  people  generally 
called  wicked.   I  used,  however,  to  indulge 


18  Jesse  Lee 


bad  tempers,  and  use  vain  words."  This 
gives  us  a  moral  photograph  of  the  boy 
of  fourteen  years,  whose  father  had  begun 
to  eschew  worldly  amusements. 

His  boyhood  education  must  have  been 
very  meager.  Not  a  high  school,  nor  an 
academy,  was  near  there  for  him  to  attend. 
Low  as  then  were  the  standards  of  the  col- 
lege at  Williamsburg,  "William  and  Mary," 
the  second  oldest  in  America,  being  next  in 
age  to  Harvard,  they  were  above  the  attain- 
ments of  the  average  boy  of  the  period. 
The  Rev.  Devereux  Jarratt  says  that  when 
he  was  thirteen  years  old  all  he  had  been 
able  to  learn  from  his  several  teachers  in 
the  school  in  his  neighborhood  was  to  be 
able  to  indifferently  read  the  Bible,  '-'write 
a  sorry  scrawl,  and  acquire  some  knowledge 
of  arithmetic.  With  this  small  fund  I  left 
school."  At  nineteen  years  of  age  he  began 
to  teach.  "I  was  so  skilled  in  the  Division 
of  Crops,  the  Rule  of  Three,  and  Practice, 
that  you  may  be  sure  that  the  fame  of  my 
learning  sounded  far."  The  schools  had 
not  greatly  improved  when,  fifteen  years 
later,  the  boy  Jesse  Lee  began  to  attend 
them. 

The  Bible  was  then  in  the  public  schools, 
such  as  they  were.   In  Virginia,  where  the 


Birth  and  Boyhood  19 


Anglican  was  the  state  Church,  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  also  was  one  of  the 
text-books.  Each  scholar  was  taught  the 
catechism  found  in  the  prayer  book.  On 
Wednesdays  and  Fridays,  the  church  serv- 
ices were  used  in  the  schools.  As  soon  as 
he  could  use  it  each  child  was  expected  to 
own  a  prayer  book  and  carry  it  to  church 
and  there  use  it  on  Sundays.  Jesse  Lee 
did  this,  and  won  favor  by  the  devout  and 
intelligent  part  he  took  in  the  Sunday  serv- 
ices. This  training  in  Bible  and  prayer 
book  reading,  and  catechism  learning,  was 
of  very  great  benefit  to  him  in  after  years. 
In  his  boyhood  he  was  often  restrained 
from  sinning  by  remembering  his  catechism. 

Instrumental  music  was  then  largely  con- 
fined to  the  fiddle,  the  fife,  and  the  drum, 
but  the  singing  teacher  was  abroad  in  the 
land.  To  singing  school  went  Jesse  Lee. 
Sacred  music  was  taught.  The  teachers 
concluded  that  the  young  people  would 
learn  the  songs  of  the  day  without  urging, 
and  so  sought  to  preempt  their  minds  with 
hymns  and  hymn  tunes.  Jesse  Lee  loved 
to  sing,  and  as  he  could  do  it  well  the  people 
liked  to  hear  him.  This  branch  of  his 
meager  early  education  was  of  great  value 
to  him  and  to  the  Church  in  his  lifework 


20  Jesse  Lee 


as-  a  preacher  of  the  gospel.  David's  early 
training  as  a  shepherd  boy,  and  as  a  musi- 
cian, helped  to  fit  him  for  kingship,  and 
for  a  psalmist.  The  Virginia  farmer's  boy 
of  fourteen  years  had  been  in  training  for 
a  work  of  which  he  never  then  had  dreamed. 
What  he  lacked  in  book  learning  was  com- 
pensated for  by  his  contact  with  living 
people.  He  learned  much  of  human  nature 
in  the  rough  and  tumble  of  the  Virginia 
farm  life  of  those  days.  At  about  fifteen 
years  of  age  he  impresses  us  as  being  a 
good  and  clean  farmer  boy,  wide-awake, 
cheerfully  disposed,  with  promise  of  be- 
coming more  than  an  ordinary  man. 


CHAPTER  III 
A  LAD'S  CONVERSION 

A  TRULY  Christian  home  is  the  most 
favorable  place  for  the  children  born  into 
it  to  secure  the  second,  spiritual  birth.  Jesse 
Lee's  home,  always  nominally  Christian, 
had  now  become  really  and  experimentally 
Christian.  Christ,  and  personal  salvation 
through  him,  was  a  frequent  topic  of  con- 
versation in  that  home.  The  father  and 
mother,  enjoying  religion,  spoke  often  one  to 
another  on  the  subject.  When  their  kindred 
and  other  guests  came  the  subject  of  reli- 
gion found  a  place  in  the  conversation. 
Doubtless  the  children  were  at  times  per- 
sonally appealed  to  on  the  subject.  It  was 
not  served  up  at  breakfast,  dinner,  supper, 
and  as  lunches  between.  These  wise  par- 
ents did  not  by  nagging  their  children  sicken 
them  of  the  theme,  as  perhaps  some  Chris- 
tian parents  unwittingly  do.  The  atmos- 
phere of  the  Lee  home  was  not  vitiated  in 
that  way,  but  was  sweetened  by  spontane- 
ous Christian  conversation  and  testimony. 

One  day  Jesse  heard  his  father,  in  talk- 


22  Jesse  Lee 


ing  to  a  pious  relative,  say:  "If  a  man's 
sins  were  forgiven  him  he  would  know  it." 
Though  not  intended  for  him,  these  words 
"took  hold  of  his  mind,  and  he  pondered 
them  in  his  heart."  They  were  "as  a  nail 
in  a  sure  place";  "they  kept  running  across 
my  mind."  He  asked  himself,  "Are  my 
sins  forgiven?"  The  painful  answer  was, 
"No."  His  conviction  of  sin  deepened  and 
continued.  For  four  weeks  never  for  an 
hour  did  he  lose  sight  of  his  lost  condition. 
His  constant  cry  was,  "How  shall  I  escape 
the  misery  of  hell?"  He  would  hide  among 
the  bushes  and  pray  for  forgiveness  of  his 
sins.  He  often  wept  bitter  tears  of  genuine 
repentance.  Sometimes  he  thought,  "Your 
day  of  grace  is  past,  and  God  will  never 
forgive  your  sins." 

The  tempter  seems  to  have  made  des- 
perate efforts  to  hinder  the  conversion  of 
this  boy  of  about  fifteen  years  of  age.  Did 
he  see  the  possibilities  in  him  for  the  king- 
dom of  light?  The  boy  had  literally  to 
agonhe  in  order  to  enter  the  strait 
gate  which  would  admit  him  to  the  nar- 
row way.  He  tells  us  how  he  entered: 
"One  morning,  being  in  deep  distress,  and 
fearing  every  moment  that  I  should  drop 
into  hell,  and  viewing  myself  as  hanging 


A  Lad's  Conversion  23 

over  the  pit,  I  was  constrained  to  cry  in 
earnest  for  mercy,  and  the  Lord  came  to 
my  rehef,  and  dehvered  my  soul  from  the 
burden  and  guilt  of  sin.  My  whole  frame 
was  in  tremor  from  head  to  foot,  and  my 
soul  enjoyed  sweet  peace.  The  pleasure 
I  then  felt  was  indescribable.  This  happi- 
ness lasted  about  three  days,  during  which 
time  I  never  spoke  to  any  person  about 
my  feelings.  I  anxiously  wished  for  some 
one  to  talk  to  me  on  the  subject,  but  no  one 
did."  His  reticence  caused  him  to  lose  his 
great  peace,  and  to  walk  in  comparative 
darkness  for  about  six  months.  He  did  not 
then  know  the  duty,  privilege,  and  power 
of  Christian  testimony.  A  religious  neigh- 
bor was  the  means  of  leading  him  again  into 
the  light.  He  asked  him,  "Were  you  ever 
converted?"  The  conversation  which  fol- 
lowed this  question  led  him  again  to  rejoice 
in  the  conscious  favor  of  God  through 
Jesus  Christ,  and  emboldened  him  to  testify 
to  the  fact  of  God's  power  on  earth  to  for- 
give sins,  for  the  sake  of  the  sinner's 
Saviour. 

Doubtless  Jesse  Lee  afterward  thought 
these  hard  conversion  experiences  were 
best  suited  to  fit  him  for  his  arduous  and 
strenuous  gospel  ministry;  but  we  never 


24  Jesse  Lee 


find  him  setting  his  experience  up  as  a 
standard  for  others.  He  knew  that  Lydia's 
sudden  and  undemonstrative  conversion 
was  just  as  thorough  and  genuine  as  that 
of  her  fehow  townsman,  the  Phihppian 
jailer.  Many  devout  Christians  who  were 
born  into  Christian  homes,  and  there  re- 
ceived true  Christian  nurture,  Hke  the 
writer,  cannot  tell  when  and  where  they 
were  converted.  Such  understand  the  reply 
of  a  little  boy  to  a  zealous  evangelist  who 
asked  him,  "Have  you  found  Jesus?"  "I 
never  lost  him,  sir."  By  practicing  the 
doctrine  and  discipline  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  as  never  before,  large 
numbers  of  her  children  are  being  saved 
from  lapsing  into  willful  transgressions. 
Many  adult  converts  cannot  tell  exactly 
when  and  where  their  new  life  began. 
That  they  now  are  spiritually  alive,  whereas 
once  they  were  spiritually  dead,  they  know. 
The  varieties  of  conversion  experiences 
recorded  in  the  New  Testament  make  inter- 
esting reading. 

Neither  Jesse  Lee  nor  his  parents  were 
converted  under  the  Methodists.  As  yet 
they  had  not  come  into  these  parts.  Mr. 
Jarratt's  ministry  in  that  section  was  the 
means  of  their  conversion.    In  1770  and 


A  Lad's  Conversion 


25 


1771  a  great  revival  swept  over  Jarratt's 
parish,  and  overflowed  into  regions  beyond. 
He  held  meetings  in  private  houses,  and 
informally  taught  and  preached  to  the 
people,  a  rare  thing  for  a  priest  of  the 
Anglican  Church  of  those  days  to  do.  He 
was  persecuted  by  his  priest  brothers  for 
working  in  this  way,  which  they  claimed 
was  contrary  to  the  canons  of  the  Church. 
He  held  meetings  much  like  class  meetings. 
Perhaps  he  had  heard  of  them  in  London, 
England,  where  he  went  to  be  ordained  in 
1763.  When  he  began  his  work  the  par- 
ishes in  Virginia  usually  numbered  eight 
or  nine  communicants  each.  In  ten  years 
of  Jarratt's  labor  the  number  in  his  parish 
had  risen  to  "nine  hundred  or  one  thou- 
sand. A  great  part  of  these,  I  trust,  were 
gracious  souls,  and  such  as  were  truly  in 
earnest  to  work  out  their  salvation."  He 
says  that  when  he  began  his  evangelistic 
work  he  knew  no  other  priest  of  his  Church 
like-minded  with  himself.  "I  stood  alone 
for  some  considerable  time,  and  I  dare  say 
no  man  was  ever  more  cordially  abhorred 
than  I  was  by  the  clergy  in  general."  Later 
he  found  one,  the  Rev.  Mr.  McRobert, 
whom  he  helped  to  bring  out,  and  whose 
zeal  later  led  him  to  leave  the  Anglican 


26  Jesse  Lee 


Church  for  a  wider  field  in  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  But  Mr.  Jarratt  remained  to  the 
last  a  loyal  and  zealous  Anglican.  He  later 
chose  rather  to  part  with  the  Methodists 
than  with  the  Established  Church.  The 
Lee  home  up  to  this  date  was  an  Anglican 
Christian  home  of  the  evangelical  sort. 
Had  all  the  state  Church  priests  been  like 
Mr.  Jarratt  and  Mr.  McRobert,  the  Meth- 
odists would  not  have  been  so  much  needed 
in  Virginia.  Wesley's  marching  orders  to 
his  preachers  were,  "Go  not  to  those  who 
need  you,  but  to  those  who  need  you  most." 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  METHODISTS  COME  ALONG 

In  1739  the  Revs.  George  Whitefield, 
John  and  Charles  Wesley,  Oxford  jMeth- 
odists  and  Anghcan  clergymen,  began  their 
work  among  the  masses  of  England.  Bris- 
tol, London,  and  Newcastle-on-Tyne  soon 
became  the  head  centers  of  the  Wesleys, 
and  London  the  head  center  for  Whitefield, 
after  he  had  parted  company  with  the  Wes- 
lc\  s  for  doctrinal  reasons.  Wesley  labored 
-successfully  in  Ireland.  In  1760  there  were 
many  Methodist  societies  in  England,  Wales, 
and  Ireland.  These  were  societies  merely, 
and  not  a  church.  Very  many  of  the  mem- 
bers were,  like  the  Wesleys,  of  the  Church 
of  England.  The  ^Methodists,  though  not 
connected  in  any  way,  were  held  by  the 
Wesleys  as  a  sort  of  annex  to  the  Church 
of  England. 

In  1760  Irish  ^Methodist  immigrants 
landed  in  New  York,  but  not  until  1766  did 
they  begin  Methodist  meetings.  Barbara 
Heck  it  was  who  called  them  to  duty,  and 
commanded  a  local  preacher,  Philip  Em- 
27 


28  Jesse  Lee 


bury,  to  preach  in  his  own  house ;  which,  of 
course,  he  did.  About  the  same  time  an 
Irish  Methodist  local  preacher,  Robert 
Strawbridge,  began  Methodist  meetings  in 
Maryland.  The  New  Yorkers  were  rein- 
forced by  a  local  preacher  and  British 
soldier,  Lieutenant  Thomas  Webb,  then  of 
Albany  barracks.  He  became  the  chief 
founder  of  American  Methodism.  Soon 
Wesley  Chapel  was  built  on  John  Street, 
New  York,  and  Lieutenant  Webb  wrote  to 
Wesley  in  England  to  send  over  preachers. 
In  1769  the  first  missionaries,  Richard 
Boardman  and  Joseph  Pilmoor,  were  ap- 
pointed at  the  Conference.  Before  they 
started,  Robert  Williams,  of  the  Irish  Con- 
ference, begged  Wesley  to  let  him  go. 
Wesley  consented  to  his  going,  on  the  self- 
supporting  plan,  if  he  would  work  under 
the  missionaries  appointed  at  the  Confer- 
ence. He  consented,  and  set  out  for  New 
York.  Driven  by  storm  into  Norfolk,  Vir- 
ginia, he  decided  to  go  no  further  by  ship, 
but  overland  to  New  York.  In  Norfolk 
he  saw  an  empty  house,  the  steps  of  which 
he  thought  would  do  for  a  pulpit.  He 
mounted  them,  and  began  his  first  service 
in  America.  His  was  the  first  sermon 
preached  by  a  traveling  Methodist  preacher 


The  Methodists  Come  Along  29 


oil  this  continent.  He  was  not  a  local 
preacher,  as  some  histories  say.  He  was 
penniless  that  day,  and  at  the  close  of  his 
service  he  begged  a  night's  lodging.  A 
sliip  captain's  wife  took  him  to  her  home. 
At  the  family  altar  he  prayed  for  the  cap- 
tain at  sea,  that  he  might  there  and  then 
become  converted.  God  answered  his 
jMayer,  for,  on  his  return,  by  comparing 
time,  it  was  found  that  the  answer  came 
while  his  unknown  guest  was  praying  for 
him  in  his  home. 

Robert  Williams  went  on  to  New  York 
and  labored  until  the  missionaries  arrived. 
He  then  worked  under  them,  according  to 
his  promise  to  Wesley.  He  was  a  very 
remarkable  man.  He  published  the  first 
Wesley  book  in  this  country.  He  was  the 
first  itinerant  to  marry,  the  first  to  locate, 
and,  after  much  pioneering,  he  was  the 
first  to  die.  In  1772-74,  Williams  pioneered 
in  Virginia.  In  1774  he  formed  the  Bruns- 
wick Circuit.  His  preaching  and  that  of 
his  associates  appealed  to  Mr.  Jarratt  and 
won  his  hearty  support.  Jarratt's  parish- 
ioners hailed  with  joy  the  new  pioneers 
and  evangelistic  preachers.  Jesse  Lee's 
parents  soon  joined  the  Methodist  society, 
as  did  Jesse  and  his  brother.    Soon  his 


30  Jesse  Lee 


father  opened  his  house  for  preaching 
services,  which  were  held  therein  for  about 
forty-six  years,  when  Mr.  Lee  died,  in  his 
ninetieth  year.  He  had  been  married  three 
times,  had  twelve  children,  and  at  his  death 
he  left  seventy-three  grandchildren  and 
sixty-six  great-grandchildren.  He  had  been 
a  Christian  for  forty-eight  years,  for  nearly 
all  of  which  time  he  had  been  a  class  leader. 
With  long  life  God  satisfied  the  father  of 
Jesse  Lee,  and  showed  him  his  salvation. 

Jesse  Lee  was  about  sixteen  years  of 
age  when  in  the  spring  of  1774  he  joined 
one  of  Williams's  newly  formed  Methodist 
societies,  which  met  in  his  father's  house. 
Under  the  preaching  of  Williams  he  soon 
felt  his  need  of  a  deeper  work  of  grace. 
Sanctification  was  preached,  he  searched 
the  Scriptures  on  the  subject,  and  he 
sought  and  found  what  his  soul  needed, 
the  perfect  love  which  casteth  out  fear. 
He  records  his  experience  at  the  close 
of  this  year,  1774,  in  these  words:  "Li 
the  latter  part  of  the  year  we  had  a 
great  revival  of  religion  in  our  neighbor- 
hood, and  many  of  my  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances were  brought  to  experience 
the  favor  of  God.  I  felt  greatly  quickened 
and  comforted  with  the  Divine  Presence. 


The  Methodists  Come  Along  31 


I  had  little  inclination  to  be  in  any  other 
company  but  the  religious.  I  was  always 
glad  to  go  to  meeting,  by  night  or  by  day, 
and  sometimes  went  on  foot  many  miles, 
and  thought  myself  highly  favored  in  that 
respect." 

The  coming  of  the  Methodists  into  their 
neighborhood  resulted  in  good  things  for 
the  Lee  family,  and  in  great  things  to  be 
accomplished  by  this  boy  recruit  into  the 
Methodist  ranks. 

Robert  Williams  is  rightly  styled  the 
Methodist  Apostle  of  Virginia.  He  did 
not  know  that  the  boy  Jesse  Lee,  whom  he 
received  into  his  society  on  the  newly 
formed  Brunswick  Circuit  early  in  1774, 
would  become  the  Apostle  of  Methodism  in 
New  England.  Pilmoor,  one  of  the  first 
missionaries,  labored  in  Virginia  and  in  that 
section  in  1772  and  1773.  He  was  there 
prospecting.  He  was  reinforced  in  the  fall 
of  1772  by  William  Watters  and  Robert 
Williams,  who  made  Norfolk  their  center, 
while  Pilmoor  went  to  regions  beyond,  to 
eastern  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Charles- 
ton, and  as  far  as  Savannah,  where  he 
visited  Whitefield's  orphanage,  begun  by 
him  in  1740.  The  spring  of  1773  found 
Pilmoor  back  in  Norfolk, 


32 


Jesse  Lee 


Very  much  credit  is  due  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Jarratt  for  his  work  in  his  own  and  adjoin- 
ing parishes.  Before  the  Methodists  came 
along  he  preached  the  saving  gospel  to  the 
people,  and  did  the  work  of  an  evangelist. 
Converts  under  his  ministry  were  many,  in- 
cluding the  Lees.  When  the  Methodist 
preachers  came  into  the  field  he  gladly 
welcomed  them.  He  took  Robert  Williams 
into  his  home  for  the  first  week.  When 
Methodist  societies  were  organized,  he  met 
classes  in  them,  and  was  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  whole  Methodist  work  and  work- 
ers. He  remained  so  until  the  societies 
became  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
when  he  wholly  withdrew,  and  even  be- 
came unfriendly  to  the  Methodists.  From 
his  labors  came  the  conversion  of  Jesse 
Lee.  To  Robert  Williams  it  was  given  to 
be  the  means  of  deepening  his  spiritual  life 
and  to  receive  him  into  the  Methodist 
society  in  1774. 


CHAPTER  V 
A  YOUNG  CHRISTIAN  WORKER 

The  spiritual  atmosphere  into  which  this 
young  convert  was  born  became  more  and 
more  invigorating  because  of  a  series  of 
revivals  in  those  parts  in  1775  and  1776. 
It  was  in  1776  that  Jesse  Lee  obtained  an 
experience  of  sanctification  by  which  he 
became  wholly  consecrated  to  God  and  to 
his  service.  He  studied  the  doct'-ine 
preached,  and  then  began  to  love  the  Lord 
with  all  his  heart  and  with  all  his  mind  and 
strength.  He  was  then  eighteen  years  of 
age,  and  had  been  converted  four  years. 
The  church  in  his  father's  house,  where 
his  father  was  the  class  leader,  was  his 
earliest  training  school.  The  IMethodist 
preachers  who  came  and  went,  and  the 
people  who  gathered  there  helped  to  de- 
velop this  young  worker  for  God  and  souls. 

But  his  own  country  is  not  always  the 
best  place  for  a  young  man  to  develop. 
Late  in  1777,  God  led  Jesse  Lee  out  from 
his  home  to  North  Carolina,  to  care  for  the 
interests  of  a  relative  whose  husband  had 
33 


34  Jesse  Lee 


died.  The  farm  was  in  the  Roanoke  Cir- 
cuit, on  which  the  Rev.  Mr.  Dobs  was 
then  the  preacher.  Jesse  Lee  did  not  make 
the  great  mistake  which  so  many  young 
Methodists  have  made — some,  we  fear,  to 
their  eternal  loss — but  he  at  once  joined 
the  society  and  began  to  meet  in  class. 
He  had  not  only  to  superintend  the  farm, 
but  to  work  with  his  hands,  yet  he  would 
not  suffer  himself  to  be  too  busy  or  too 
tired  to  go  to  the  house  of  the  Lord  on 
week  nights,  as  well  as  Sundays.  He  says 
that  being  among  strangers  he  became  less 
timid  to  speak  for  his  Lord,  and  to  under- 
take Christian  work.  He  so  commended 
himself  to  pastor  and  people  that  in  1778 
he  was  appointed  class  leader,  though  only 
twenty  years  old.  He  deeply  felt  this 
responsibility,  and  felt  the  more  need  to 
cultivate  his  own  spiritual  life  and  to  im- 
prove his  mind.  He  then  formed  the  ex- 
cellent habit  of  taking  notes  of  the  ser- 
mons he  heard.  He  watched  for  the  divi- 
sions the  preacher  made,  and  studied  the 
doctrines  preached.  By  this  means  he  was, 
though  unwittingly,  taking  lessons  in  dog- 
matic and  in  practical  theology.  When, 
later,  he  came  to  study  theology  and  to 
sermonize,  he  found  how  useful  the  practice 


A  Young  Christian  Worker  35 


had  been  to  him.  Not  a  few  great  preach- 
ers have  learned  to  preach  in  this  same  way. 
Jesse  Lee  continued  this  practice  to  the 
close  of  his  life.  The  sermons  he  heard  and 
noted  helped  him  lead  his  class. 

He  now  began  another  line  of  Chris- 
tian work,  to  hold  neighborhood  prayer 
meetings.  Without  knowing  it,  he  was 
following  the  English  Methodist  road  to 
the  pulpit,  via  the  prayer  leaders'  and  local 
preachers'  "plans."  At  these  cottage  meet- 
ings be  began  "begging"  the  people  to  be 
reconciled  to  God.  He  did  not  at  first  call 
this  exhorting,  but  it  was.  He  was  a  weep- 
ing class  and  prayer  leader,  for  often  his 
tears  flowed  as  he  spoke  to  God  for  the 
people  and  to  the  people  for  God.  This 
young  farmer  from  Virginia  became  a  busy 
Christian  worker  in  his  new  field,  his  days 
being  spent  in  honest  toil,  his  evenings  and 
nights  in  religious  work,  either  in  meetings 
or  in  reading  and  study,  fitting  himself  for 
better  service. 

He  had  now  begun  to  write  for  his  own 
pleasure,  not  only  sermon  notes,  but  other 
personal  matters,  so  that  his  journals  at 
last  covered  three  thousand  pages  of  man- 
uscript, all  of  which,  unfortunately,  was 
biirned  in  the  Book  Concern  fire  in  New 


36  Jesse  Lee 


York  in  1836.  These  journals  recorded 
the  books  he  had  read,  authors,  subjects, 
and  number  of  pages.  The  record  for  1779 
shows  2,984  pages  read,  and  the  list  shows 
a  very  wise  choice.  He  was  not  content  to 
be  only  a  Christian  young  man,  he  aimed 
to  be  an  intelligent  and  a  working  Chris- 
tian. His  farming,  study,  and  Christian 
work  kept  him  too  busy  for  worldly  pleas- 
ures. He  found  his  chief  delight  in  get- 
ting and  doing  good. 

During  these  years  he  was  not  neglect- 
ful of  his  parents  and  friends  at  home. 
Once  a  year,  at  least,  he  went  home.  He 
was  gladly  welcomed  to  the  services  in  his 
father's  house  and  in  that  vicinity,  espe- 
cially as  from  time  to  time  he  showed  him- 
self to  be  a  growing  worker.  Though  now 
nearly  of  age,  he  honored  his  parents,  as  a 
part  of  his  Christian  life. 

Whether  Jesse  Lee  had  any  idea  of 
preaching  in  these  early  days,  we  know 
not.  Certain  it  is  that  God  had  thoughts 
of  this  sort  concerning  him.  God's  way  is 
to  promote  those  who  are  faithful  in  the 
least  things,  by  calling  them  to  greater 
services.  He  promoted  Shepherd-boy 
David  to  be,  first,  king  of  Hebron ;  he  was 
faithful  there,  then  God  made  him  king  of 


A  Young  Christian  Worker  37 


Israel.  Farmer-boy  Jesse  Lee  is  now  to  be 
called  to  be,  first,  a  preacher,  then  an 
apostle  and  founder  of  churches.  This 
promotion  came  to  him  in  the  natural  and 
Methodistic  way.  First  he  became  an 
official  exhorter.  The  date  of  this  step  up- 
ward is  March  8,  1788.  He  had  often  ex- 
horted before  this,  but  now  he  is  recognized 
as  holding  the  office.  The  Rev.  John 
Dickins  was  at  this  time  preacher  on  the 
Roanoke  Circuit.  He  could  not  have  had 
a  better  pastor  and  leader  while  his  mind 
was  being  exercised  about  preaching.  On 
the  17th  of  November,  1779,  at  a  place 
called  "Old  Barn,"  he  made  his  first  at- 
tempt. His  text  was  i  John  3.  i,  2.  His 
experience  was:  "I  felt  more  liberty  in 
speaking  from  the  text  than  I  expected  to 
feel  when  I  began.  I  felt  such  a  desire  to 
please  God,  and  to  instruct  the  people  how 
to  serve  him,  that  I  was  at  that  time  will- 
ing to  spend  my  days  in  the  service  of  God." 
He  preached  several  times  in  the  following 
weeks.  He  was  so  conscious  of  his  own 
weakness,  and  of  imperfections  in  his 
preaching,  that  he  would  go  to  the  woods 
and  lie  prostrate  on  the  ground  asking 
pardon,  and  praying  God  to  bless  his  im- 
perfect services;  but  give  up  preaching 


38  Jesse  Lee 


because  not  able  to  preach  perfectly,  he 
would  not.  His  pastor,  John  Dickins,  had 
his  eye  upon  him.  He  had  some  literary 
work  he  wished  to  finish,  and  asked  Jesse 
Lee  to  preach  for  him  on  the  circuit  during 
his  necessary  absence.  He  timidly  con- 
sented, and  thus  he  had  his  first  taste  of 
the  ministry.  After  a  few  weeks  Mr.  Dick- 
ins  returned,  and  Jesse  Lee  went  back  to  his 
humbler  services,  which  he  then  felt  suited 
him  better. 

At  the  close  of  1779  we  find  Jesse  Lee 
again  at  home  in  Virginia.  The  winter  of 
1779-80  was  the  coldest  known  in  Vir- 
ginia, but  Jesse's  heart  was  warm  toward  the 
Lord  and  toward  the  work  to  which  he  felt 
himself  being  called. 

He  was  now  nearly  twenty-two  years 
old.  The  returns  for  1774,  the  year  when 
he  joined  the  Methodists,  show  ten  circuits, 
seventeen  preachers,  and  2,073  members. 
Now,  in  1779,  there  were  8,577  members, 
nearly  one  half  of  whom  were  in  Virginia. 
Listead  of  ten  circuits  in  the  five  States 
where  Methodism  had  begun  its  work  there 
were  twenty  circuits.  The  seventeen  min- 
isters had  increased  to  forty-four.  In  1779 
two  Conferences  were  held,  one  in  Kent 
County,  Delaware,  April  28,  the  other  in 


A  Young  Christian  Worker  39 


Fluvanna,  Virginia,  May  i8.  Virginia  was 
the  banner  State  for  Methodism  in  those 
early  days  of  Jesse  Lee,  farmer-boy,  con- 
vert, Christian  worker,  and  now  local 
preacher.  His  preachers  and  pastors  up  to 
this  time,  to  whom  he  refers,  besides  Mr. 
Jarratt,  had  been  Robert  Williams,  George 
Shadford,  Edward  Dromgoole,  and  Wil- 
liam Glendenning,  on  the  Brunswick  Cir- 
cuit, and  Messrs.  Dobs  and  John  Dickins, 
on  the  Roanoke  Circuit,  in  North  Carolina. 
He  had  also  heard  Asbury  on  his  visit  to 
the  Brunswick  Circuit  in  1775,  and  Garrett- 
son  at  a  watch-night  service,  where  he  made 
his  second  attempt  at  exhortation.  He  was 
highly  favored  in  having  such  men  to  influ- 
ence his  life  and  early  attempts  at  Chris- 
tian work. 


CHAPTER  VI 


A  ZEALOUS  LOCAL  PREACHER 

Laymen  who  preach  are  in  Methodism 
called  "local  preachers,"  to  distinguish  them 
from  traveling  preachers,  who  are  wholly 
set  apart  for  the  work,  who  itinerate,  and 
are  supported  by  the  Church.  Lay 
preachers  are  local  in  their  labors,  and  gen- 
erally support  themselves  by  daily  toil,  and 
serve  as  volunteers  on  Sundays.  About 
twenty  thousand  of  these  occupy  English 
Methodist  pulpits  every  Sunday.  Without 
their  volunteer  help  thousands  of  churches 
would  have  to  be  closed.  American  Meth- 
odism, to  her  great  loss,  has  not  called  out 
local  preachers  as  has  the  mother  Church. 
The  abandonment  of  the  circuit  system  has 
helped  to  make  lay  preaching  almost  a  lost 
art.  Lay  preachers,  such  as  Stephen  and 
Philip,  largely  helped  to  found  the  apostolic 
Church.  Justin,  the  Martyr,  was  a  lay 
preacher,  in  the  early  Church.  American 
Methodism  was  founded  by  lay  preachers 
— Embury,  Webb,  and  Strawbridge.  Nearly 
all  Wesley's  "helpers"  were  lay  preachers. 
40 


A  Zealous  Local  Preacher  41 


We  have  seen  that  Jesse  Lee  had  become 
a  local  preacher  by  preaching  his  first  ser- 
mon at  the  "Old  Barn,"  November  17,  1779. 
He  continued  to  preach  when  soldiering, 
much  to  the  profit  of  his  comrades.  On  his 
return  home,  on  November  4,  1780,  he 
had  been  a  local  preacher  one  year,  three 
months  of  which  had  been  spent  in  the  army. 
He  now  took  up  his  work  of  preaching  with 
renewed  vigor. 

The  year  1781  was  a  year  of  perplexity 
to  him.  He  loved  to  hear  and  to  preach 
the  Word,  and  was  always  busy  working 
with  his  hands  on  week  days  and  preach- 
ing on  Sundays.  But  wars  and  rumors  of 
war  kept  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  in  a 
constant  ferment.  General  Greene  was 
drawing  Cornwallis  northward,  away  from 
his  supplies  at  Charleston.  The  battle  of 
Cowpens  was  won  January  17,  1781,  but  at 
Guilford  Courthouse  (now  Greensborough, 
North  Carolina)  Cornwallis  won  the  day, 
but  with  such  loss  that  he  had  to  retreat  to 
Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  with  about 
half  as  many  as  he  led  out.  Greene  recap- 
tured Camden,  South  Carolina,  and  Corn- 
wallis set  out  for  Petersburg,  Virginia,  hop- 
ing there  to  be  joined  by  reinforcements 
from  New  York.    That  year,  1781,  Greene 


42  Jesse  Lee 


won  back  the  Carolinas  and  drove  Corn- 
wallis  to  Yorktown,  Virginia,  where  he  was 
locked  up  in  his  own  prison  until  he  gave 
up  the  struggle  and  marched  out,  October 
19,  1781,  to  the  tune  of  "The  World's  Up- 
side Down."  This  was  true  of  the  British 
world  in  America,  for  Yorktown  practically 
ended  the  War  of  Independence.  Lord 
North  hearing  of  it  said,  "It  is  all  over," 
and  he  then  resigned. 

The  price  the  Virginians  and  Carolinians 
had  to  pay  for  these  victories  was  high. 
Men  were  pressed  into  the  army.  Some, 
whose  principles  would  not  permit  them  to 
fight,  were  whipped,  fined,  or  imprisoned. 
The  circuit  preachers  were  hindered  in  their 
work.  Homes  were  made  desolate  because 
fathers,  husbands,  and  sons  were  killed  or 
wounded  in  battle.  Jesse  Lee  was  troubled. 
He  had  been  drafted  a  second  time,  but  was 
released.  He  preached,  led  classes,  and 
toiled  hard  in  the  vineyard  that  year,  though 
the  war  troubled  him  greatly.  He  was  a 
man  of  peace. 

Another  great  question  was  pressed  upon 
him.  It  was  a  question  which  has  stirred 
every  Methodist  preacher  to  the  deepest 
depths  of  his  being,  the  question,  "Ought  I 
to  give  myself  wholly  to  the  ministry  of  the 


A  Zealous  Local  Preacher  43 

Word  ?"  He  writes :  "I  had  for  some  time  been 
deeply  exercised  about  traveling  and  preach- 
ing the  gospel ;  and  at  times  it  appeared  that 
I  could  not  with  a  clear  conscience  resist  the 
thought,  and  still  was  unwilling  to  go,  fear- 
ing that  I  should  injure  the  work  of  God, 
which  I  loved  as  I  did  my  own  life." 

He  resorts  to  what  may  seem  to  some 
readers  a  novel  way  to  dispose  of  this 
question.  He  contemplated  marriage.  In 
those  days  traveling  preachers  who  mar- 
ried usually  then  ceased  to  travel.  They 
could  not  subject  wives  and  children  to 
the  hardships  of  the  itinerancy.  Hence 
we  find  the  Virginia  Conference  was 
called  the  "Bachelor  Conference."  Lee 
does  not  then  tell  us  what  steps  he  took  to 
secure  a  wife,  but  many  years  later,  on 
being  jibed  that  one  sister  had  failed  to 
elect  him  to  matrimony,  he  said,  "Neither 
the  Lord  nor  the  woman  would  consent." 
He  never  married.  He  thought  this  was  to 
his  "spiritual  advantage."  As  we  view  his 
pioneering  lifework  we  think  it  was  also  of 
great  advantage  to  the  Church.  Charles 
\A'esley  ceased  to  itinerate  soon  after  his 
marriage.  Had  Lee  then  married,  probably 
he  would  never  have  become  an  itinerant 
and  the  Apostle  to  New  England. 


44  Jesse  Lee 


On  April  17,  1782,  Jesse  Lee  attended 
Conference  for  the  first  time.  This  was 
the  tenth  Conference  of  the  American 
Methodists,  and  was  held  at  Ellis's  Meet- 
inghouse, in  Sussex  County,  Virginia. 
About  thirty  preachers  met.  The  Rev.  Mr. 
Jarratt,  the  Anglican  priest,  was  present, 
and  took  part  in  the  Conference.  He 
preached  the  opening  sermon,  on  Hosea, 
fourteenth  chapter.  The  Conference  hon- 
ored him  by  advising  the  preachers  to  con- 
sult with  him  in  the  absence  of  Asbury.  He 
also  promised  to  administer  the  sacraments 
in  the  societies,  which  the  Methodist 
preachers  could  not  then  do.  Jesse  Lee  was 
profoundly  impressed  by  the  consecrated 
and  loving  spirit  of  the  ministers.  He  did 
not  backslide  in  the  least  degree  at  Con- 
ference. Hear  him :  "By  reason  of  what  I 
saw  and  heard  during  the  four  days  that 
the  Conference  sat,  I  found  my  heart  truly 
humbled  in  the  dust,  and  my  desire  greatly 
increased  to  love  and  serve  God  more  per- 
fectly than  I  had  ever  done  before." 

At  the  close  of  the  Conference,  Asbury 
asked  him  to  take  a  circuit.  He  was  afraid 
to  do  so.  Asbury  told  some  preachers 
standing  by,  *T  am  going  to  enlist  Brother 
Lee."    One  said,  "What  bounty  do  you 


A  Zealous  Local  Preacher  45 


give?"  He  answered,  "Grace  here,  and 
glory  hereafter,  will  be  given  if  he  is  faith- 
ful." Neither  Asbury  nor  the  preachers 
could  enlist  him  at  that  time,  but  the  ques- 
tion still  stirred  his  soul  to  the  very  depths. 

He  now  began  to  plan  his  affairs  so  that 
he  could  itinerate  if  he  must.  At  a  quarterly 
meeting,  November  3,  1782,  he  consented 
to  go  on  a  circuit.  He  probably  determined 
to  settle  this  question  once  and  for  all. 
After  a  few  weeks  on  his  first  circuit. 
Presiding  Elder  Peddicord  asked  him  to  go 
with  Mr.  E.  Dromgoole  to  open  up  a  new 
circuit  near  Edenton,  in  North  Carolina. 
Lee  consented,  and  with  Dromgoole  reached 
Edenton  on  December  i,  1782.  In  the 
lowlands  from  Edenton  to  Norfolk  County, 
in  \'irginia,  they  preached  and  prospected 
for  sixteen  days,  holding  nineteen  meet- 
ings. This  was  largely  virgin  soil  for 
^Methodists.  Out  of  it  later  came  the  great 
Camden  Circuit.  Jesse  Lee  then  again 
returned  to  his  father's  house,  where  he 
farmed,  preached  as  a  local  preacher,  and 
lielped  the  traveling  preachers  on  the  cir- 
cuit until  the  spring  of  1783.  The  circuit- 
ing with  Dromgoole  seems  to  have  led  him 
to  decide  to  offer  for  the  itinerancy  at  the 
next  Conference. 


CHAPTER  VII 


A  FAITHFUL  BUT  NOT  A  FIGHTING 
SOLDIER 

In  the  Continental  Congress  at  Philadel- 
phia, June  7,  1776,  Richard  Henry  Lee,  of 
Virginia,  moved  "That  these  United  Col- 
onies are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free 
and  independent  States."  This  motion,  sec- 
onded by  John  Adams,  of  Massachusetts, 
and  carried,  precipitated  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence. Whether  the  mover  of  this  res- 
olution was  a  relative  of  Jesse  Lee  we  can- 
not learn.  Certainly  General  Charles  Lee, 
who  fought  under  Washington,  was  not, 
for  he  was  a  deserter  from  the  English 
army.  For  faithlessness  he  was  dismissed 
from  the  army  by  Congress.  He  died  in 
disgrace.  He  was  not  a  Virginian  Lee.  If 
any  reader  knows  of  relationship  between 
the  Lees  of  the  War  of  Independence  and 
the  Civil  War  and  Jesse  Lee  we  would  like 
to  learn  of  it. 

The  center  of  operations  had  been  moved 
from  Boston  and  New  York  to  the  South. 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  was  taken, 
46 


A  Faithful  Soldier  47 


May  12,  1780.  Here  Cornwallis  had  his 
headquarters.  Savannah,  Georgia,  had  been 
taken  December  20,  1778.  King  George 
said,  "Half  a  loaf  is  better  than  none,"  hop- 
ing, if  beaten,  to  be  able  to  retain  the 
southern  territory. 

But  Cornwallis  as  he  moved  northward 
had  to  meet  Marion  and  Sumter  and  the 
Carolina  patriots,  some  of  whom  had  only 
saw-blades  and  old  scythes  for  weapons, 
and  but  few  guns ;  yet  they  kept  the  British 
busy.  In  1780  the  militia  was  called  out 
and  Jesse  Lee  was  drafted  to  serve  as  a 
soldier.  He  was  truly  patriotic,  and  willing 
to  serve  his  country  in  any  way  he  con- 
scientiously could.  But  fighting  to  kill  was 
contrary  to  his  convictions.  He  could  not 
as  a  Christian,  and  now  as  a  preacher  of 
the  gospel,  fight  to  kill.  Neither  could  he 
even  bear  arms.  Serve  his  country  he 
would,  but  not  in  that  way.  He  went  for- 
ward trusting  that  God  would  open  his  way 
for  him,  which  he  did.  He  shall  tell  his 
own  story :  "I  did  not  join  the  army  till  the 
29th  (July,  1780).  On  the  evening  of  that 
day  I  came  in  sight  of  the  camp,  and  was 
soon  called  on  parade,  and  orders  were 
given  for  all  the  soldiers  to  be  furnished 
with  guns.    I  then  lifted  my  heart  to  God 


48  Jesse  Lee 


and  besought  him  to  take  my  cause  into  his 
hands  and  support  me  in  the  hours  of  trial. 
The  sergeant  soon  came  round  with  the 
guns,  and  offered  one  to  me,  but  I  could  not 
take  it.  Then  the  Heutenant  brought  me 
one,  but  I  refused  to  take  it.  He  said  I 
should  go  under  guard.  He  then  went  to 
the  colonel,  and,  coming  back,  brought  a 
gun  and  set  it  down  against  me.  I  told  him 
he  had  as  well  take  it  away,  or  it  would  fall. 
He  then  took  me  with  him  and  delivered 
me  to  the  guard.  After  a  while  the  colonel 
came,  and  taking  me  out,  a  little  way  from 
the  guard,  he  began  to  converse  with  me, 
and  to  assign  many  reasons  why  I  should 
bear  arms ;  but  his  reasons  were  not  suffi- 
ciently cogent  to  make  any  alteration  in  my 
mind.  He  then  told  the  guard  to  take  care 
of  me,  and  so  left  me." 

Thus  closed  his  first  day  of  soldiering, 
with  the  young  local  preacher  under  guard 
for  refusing  to  bear  arms.  The  camp 
was  near  what  is  now  Raleigh,  and  close  to 
a  tavern.  The  news  of  this  strange  soldier 
spread,  and  many  people  came  and  talked 
with  him ;  some  left  him  in  tears.  Soldiers 
brought  him  straw,  blankets,  and  great- 
coats, for  a  bed.  He  found  among  his  fel- 
low prisoners  a  Baptist.  Why  he  was  there 


A  Faithful  Soldier  49 


he  Qoes  not  say,  perhaps  for  the  same  rea- 
son as  he  was.  Lee  proposed  evening 
prayers  in  the  guardhouse,  and  called  on 
the  Baptist  to  pray,  which  he  did. 

The  next  morning  was  Sunday.  He  was 
up  and  singing  at  daybreak,  and  soon  hun- 
dreds of  people  gathered  and  joined  him. 
At  the  close  of  the  meeting  Mr.  Thomas, 
the  tavern  keeper,  came  to  tell  him  he  had 
heard  him  praying  and  was  moved  to  tears, 
and  to  ask  him  to  preach  to  them  that  day. 
Lee  promised  to,  if  he  would  get  the  con- 
sent of  the  colonel,  and  get  a  block  for  him 
to  stand  on.  The  colonel,  who  was  a  great 
swearer,  consented,  and  was  moved  to 
labor  with  the  preacher  to  convince  him  he 
ought  to  bear  arms.  He  could  not.  He 
therefore  put  him  to  drive  a  baggage  wagon, 
and  to  lodge  with  a  Methodist  cook.  He 
told  him  he  might  preach  near  his  own  tent. 
Lee  mounted  a  bench  under  the  trees  and 
preached  from  Luke  13.  5:  "Except  ye 
repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish."  Rain 
soon  drove  them  into  a  house,  where  he 
finished  his  sermon.  They  wanted  to  take 
a  collection  for  him,  but  he  would  not  let 
them. 

On  Monday  morning  he  began  his  duties 
as  wagon  driver.    They  went  down  to  the 


50  Jesse  Lee 


Pedee  River,  in  South  Carolina,  where  they 
encamped,  having  short  rations  and  forced 
marches  on  the  way.  Jesse  Lee  amid  swear- 
ing soldiers  felt  his  need  of  special  grace 
to  live  rightly  before  them.  He  really  did 
the  work  of  a  chaplain  with  great  success. 
He  says:  "For  some  weeks  I  hardly  ever 
prayed  in  public,  or  preached,  or  reproved 
a  sinner,  without  seeing  some  good  effects 
produced  by  my  labors." 

On  August  1 6,  1780,  the  battle  at  Cam- 
den, South  Carolina,  was  lost,  and  General 
Gates  himself  came  near  being  captured. 
This  spread  gloom  over  the  camp,  and 
silenced  the  lips  of  many  swearers.  A 
retreat  was  ordered  to  North  Carolina. 
Sickness  caused  Mr.  Lee  to  leave  camp  for 
a  week.  On  the  morning  after  his  return 
the  colonel  put  him  among  the  pioneers. 
He  soon  became  sergeant  of  pioneers,  which 
was  a  safe  and  easy  berth.  The  hard 
marching,  short  rations,  and  other  trials 
led  him  closer  to  God.  Near  Salisbury,  on 
September  15,  the  soldiers  relieved  the 
monotony  by  taking  a  well-known  Tory 
from  under  guard  and  hanging  him  from  a 
tree,  without  judge  or  jury.  But  no  one 
would  tell  who  were  the  guilty  ones.  The 
retreat  was  a  hard  one,  for  the  British  were 


A  Faithful  Soldier  51 


sometimes  close  to  them.  Amid  the  fugi- 
tives from  British  guns  the  colonel  rode  up 
to  Lee  and  said,  "Well,  Lee,  don't  you  think 
you  could  fight  now?"  "I  told  him,"  says 
Lee,  "I  could  fight  with  switches,  but  I 
could  not  kill  a  man?"  The  victory  at 
Kings  IMountain,  on  October  7,  checked 
the  British  advance  northward,  and  heart- 
ened the  tired  and  weary  retreaters.  To  the 
brave  Carolinian  sharpshooters  from  the 
backwoods  largely  belongs  the  credit  of  this 
victory  on  the  borders  of  the  Carolinas. 

Sunday  morning,  October  29,  1780,  was 
a  glad  morning  for  Mr.  Lee,  for  then  he 
was  honorably  discharged  from  the  army. 
Of  it  he  writes :  "The  general  said  as  there 
were  two  sergeants  of  pioneers,  and  one 
was  sufficient,  it  would  be  best  for  me  to 
resign,  and  as  I  was  the  oldest  in  office  I 
might  have  the  privilege  if  I  chose  it.  I 
accepted  the  oflfer,  took  my  discharge, 
settled  some  business,  took  leave  of  many 
of  my  old  acquaintances,  and  left  the  army." 
Though  he  had  not  fought  for  his  country, 
he  had  worked  for  it  as  a  good  soldier  of 
both  his  country  and  of  Jesus  Christ.  He 
left  the  army  a  stronger  and  better  Chris- 
tian and  worker  than  he  entered  it.  He 
had  not  sacrificed  his  principles,  and  God 


52  Jesse  Lee 


had  cared  for  and  led  him  in  their  main- 
tenance. 

He  now  set  out  on  foot,  and  alone,  for  his 
father's  house  in  Virginia.  After  six  days 
of  tramping  through  the  scenes  of  the  war, 
sometimes  faring  well  and  sometimes  ill  at 
the  hands  of  the  people,  he  reached  home 
November  4.  He  was  made  glad  in  finding 
that  during  his  absence  a  sister  and  a 
brother  had  become  converted. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AN  ITINERANT  PREACHER 

The  Virginia  Conference  of  1783  was 
held  at  Ellis's  Meetinghouse,  Sussex  County, 
May  6.  At  this  Conference  Mr,  Lee 
was  admitted  on  trial,  and  appointed  to 
Caswell  Circuit,  North  Carolina.  He  tells 
how  he  felt  about  it:  "Notwithstanding  I 
have  had  ten  years'  experience  as  a  Chris- 
tian, and  have  been  a  public  speaker  more 
than  five  years,  I  trembled  at  the  thought 
of  the  station  I  was  about  to  fill."  He  left 
home  and  weeping  relatives,  and  mounted 
the  itinerant  wheel  for  his  circuit,  which 
he  reached  on  June  23.  After  three  weeks' 
experience  it  was  decided  that  the  circuit 
was  too  poor  for  two  preachers,  and  Mr. 
Lee  being  the  junior,  at  the  quarterly  meet- 
ing he  was  removed  to  the  Amelia  Circuit, 
in  Virginia.  He  labored  on  this  circuit  from 
August  24,  1783,  until  February  14,  1784. 
He  was  then  removed  to  Sussex  Circuit, 
where  on  February  18  he  began  his  work 
by  preaching  in  his  father's  house.  On 
Friday,  March  12,  he  celebrated  the  twenty- 
53 


54  Jesse  Lee 


si^^th  anniversary  of  his  birthday.  His 
first  year  in  the  ministry  was  marked  by  his 
fully  consecrated  life  and  service,  and  was 
very  acceptable  to  the  people. 

April  30,  1784,  finds  the  Conference 
again,  for  the  third  time,  in  Ellis's  Meeting- 
house. Mr.  Jarratt  is  there,  and  full  of 
zeal  for  Christ  and  Methodism.  At  this 
Conference  Mr.  Lee  is  appointed  to  Salis- 
bury Circuit,  North  Carolina,  which  he 
reached  on  June  9,  after  a  visit  to  his  home, 
as  was  his  invariable  custom  on  changing 
circuits.  He  was  a  great  lover  of  his 
father's  house,  and  of  his  kindred  there. 
Isaac  Smith  was  his  colleague;  they  met 
at  Salisbury,  June  12.  Lee  here  turned 
aside  and  visited  the  camp  where  in  1780 
he  was  forced  to  company  with  the  wicked. 
He  contrasts  them  with  his  present  asso- 
ciates. Large  congregations  greeted  him  on 
this  new  circuit.  His  labors  were  greatly 
blessed  to  them. 

The  spirit  in  which  he  now  labored  is 
seen  from  his  journal  of  Tuesday,  August 
10:  "I  preached  at  Tilman's  and  felt  an 
ardent  desire  to  be  of  some  service  to  the 
souls  of  the  people.  There  was  a  gracious 
move  among  the  hearers,  and  before  I  got 
through  my  discourse  I  wept  over  my 


An  Itinerant  Preacher  55 


audience  for  some  time.  None  but  God 
knows  what  I  felt  at  that  time;  my  heart 
was  ready  to  break  with  grief  on  the  account 
of  poor  sinners  who  were  perishing  in  their 
sins.  In  many  cases  it  appeared  as  if  I 
could  preach  till  I  dropped  dead  in  the  pul- 
pit, if  it  would  be  the  means  of  bringing 
souls  to  the  knowledge  of  God.  My  heart 
cried  out,  'O  Lord,  revive  thy  work  in  the 
midst  of  the  year !'  "  In  this  spirit  he  toiled 
and  was  ready  to  suffer,  and  if  needs  be  die 
for  God  and  souls.  In  October  of  this  year 
he  came  near  to  being  drowned  in  the 
Yadkin  River,  where  his  horse  got  among 
the  hidden  rocks.  He  was  a  good  rider  but 
a  poor  swimmer.  We  once  saw  an  old  call 
for  a  preacher  "who  is  a  good  swimmer, 
as  there  are  several  rivers  to  cross  on  the 
round."  Jesse  Lee  would  not  have  done 
for  that  circuit. 

The  year  1784  was  a  most  memorable 
one  in  Methodist  history.  John  Wesley  had 
that  year  secured  the  Deed,  which  put  all 
legal  powers  in  British  Methodism  into  the 
hands  of  one  hundred  of  his  preachers  after 
his  death.  The  Legal  Hundred  is  the  law- 
making body  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist 
Church  to-day.  John  Wesley  had  also 
decided  to  organize  the  scattered  Methodists 


56  Jesse  Lee 


in  America  into  the  "Methodist  Episcopal 
Church."  He  had  ordained  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Coke,  D.C.L.,  as  superintendent, 
or  bishop,  and  the  Revs.  Richard  Whatcoat 
and  Thomas  Vasey  as  deacons  and  elders, 
and  sent  them  to  America  to  organize  the 
new  Church  in  the  new  country.  He  re- 
vised the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  and 
made  it  "The  Sunday  Service  of  the  Meth- 
odists in  North  America."  He  also  pre- 
pared "A  Collection  of  Psalms  and  Hymns" 
as  the  new  hymn  book  for  the  new  Church. 

On  December  12,  1784,  Mr.  Lee  was 
notified  that  Dr.  Coke  had  arrived,  and 
was  calling  him  to  the  Conference  to  be 
held  at  Baltimore  on  December  24.  This 
was  the  famous  "Christmas  Conference," 
at  which  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
was  organized,  and  Francis  Asbury,  at  the 
request  of  John  Wesley,  and  by  the  unan- 
imous vote  of  the  preachers,  was  ordained 
superintendent.  Lee  was  five  hundred  miles 
from  Baltimore,  and  in  twelve  days  the  Con- 
ference would  meet.  He  could  not  attend. 
We  wish  he  could  have  been  there,  and 
detailed  its  important  doings,  which  he 
probably  would  have  done. 

From  that  Conference  Bishop  Asbury 
set  out  to  visit  his  see,  which  was  to  be 


An  Itinerant  Preacher  57 


probably  the  largest  in  Christendom.  In 
February,  1785,  he  reached  Lee's  circuit. 
They  met  at  Colonel  Hendron's.  Just 
before  the  service  there  Air.  Asbury  ap- 
peared in  black  gown,  cassock,  and  bands, 
much  to  the  grief  of  plain  Jesse  Lee,  who 
feared  that  such  a  clerical  display  would 
prejudice  the  Americans  against  Meth- 
odism, and  thus  prove  to  be  an  impediment 
to  its  movements.  The  saintly  Henry 
Willis  was  with  Asbury  as  his  helper.  Later, 
Lee's  argimients  with  Asbur}-  seem  to  have 
been  successful  in  removing  the  canonical 
garments.  For  both  these  and  the  Prayer 
Book  were  later  laid  aside,  as  not  adapted 
to  the  pioneer  work  before  the  new  Church. 

Jesse  Lee  and  Bishop  Asbury  were  now 
becoming  great  friends.  Asbury  took  Lee 
with  him  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  as 
a  helper.  On  their  way  they  passed  through 
Cheraw.  The  wise  Providence  in  this  trip 
with  Asbury  is  seen  by  the  fact  that  at 
Cheraw  Lee  first  received  his  call  to  his 
greatest  lifework.  It  was  on  this  wise:  A 
young  clerk  of  the  merchant  who  enter- 
tained them  was  from  Alassachusetts.  Mr. 
Lee  got  acquainted  with  him,  and  from  him 
learned  much  about  New  England.  He  at 
once  inclined  to  go  there  to  labor.  Asbury 


58 


Jesse  Lee 


did.  not  favor  it,  perhaps  because  New 
England  was  fairly  well  churched.  Lee 
tried  to  interest  other  preachers,  and  rested 
not  until  about  four  years  later  his  desire 
was  fulfilled  and  he  became  the  Apostle  of 
Methodism  to  New  England,  of  which  he 
had  learned  from  the  young  clerk  in 
Cheraw,  in  February,  1785.  Johnson  was 
not  the  name  of  that  young  clerk,  as  we 
shall  later  see.  He  was  one  of  the  many 
unnamed  ones  whose  influence  upon  history 
has  been  great.  The  three  journeyed  on  to 
Charleston,  passing  through  Georgetown. 
At  Charleston  they  all  preached  where  John 
and  Charles  Wesley  had  preached  in  1736, 
and  where  Pilmoor  had  preached,  as  a 
Methodist,  in  1773.  Asbury  appointed 
Willis  preacher  in  charge  there,  and  he 
founded  the  present  Methodist  work  in  that 
city.  Asbury  then  sent  Lee  back  to  his  own 
circuit.  ]\Iethodist  preachers  then  were 
certainly  traveling  preachers.  When  a 
bishop  said  "Come,"  the  preacher  came; 
when  he  said,  "Go,"  he  went.  Seldom 
more  than  six  months  would  one  stay  on 
the  same  circuit.  Mr.  Lee  was  away  from 
his  circuit  twenty-six  days  with  Asbury. 
He  returned  in  time  to  take  leave  before 
departing  for  Conference  and  another  field. 


An  Itinerant  Preacher  59 


At  the  Conference  which  met  at  Green 
Hills,  April  20,  1785,  he  met  Dr.  Coke. 
On  the  question  of  slavery  being  one  of 
the  greatest  evils  they  agreed,  but  on  meth- 
ods, Lee,  knowing  the  South,  was  wiser 
than  Coke,  the  stranger  in  America.  Lee 
went  on  to  the  Conference  at  jMason's  on 
Brunswick  Circuit,  and  thence  to  JNIary- 
land  Conference  which  met  at  Baltimore, 
June  I.  Here  he  was  appointed  to  Caro- 
lina Circuit,  where  he  labored  until  ]\Iarch, 
1786,  and  then  left  for  home  and  the  Vir- 
ginia Conference,  at  Lane's  JMeetinghouse, 
in  Sussex,  April  10.  He  then  went  back  to 
the  Conference  at  Abington,  IMaryland, 
which  met  May  8.  Here  he  declined  dea- 
con's orders,  to  which  he  was  now  eligible. 
He  was  sent  to  Kent  Circuit.  On  this  cir- 
cuit the  blacks  and  children  received  his 
special  attention.  The  circuit  included  four 
counties — Kent,  Cecil,  Caroline,  and  Queen 
Anne — and  was  one  of  the  first  formed  in 
America.  Three  hundred  were  added  dur- 
ing Mr.  Lee's  term.  He  preached  thirty- 
one  times  and  met  fifty-two  classes  within 
four  weeks.  This  was  his  pleasantest  and 
most  successful  circuit  thus  far. 

May  I,  1787,  finds  him  at  Conference  in 
Baltimore,  in  and  near  which  he  was  now 


60  Jesse  Lee 


to  labor.  Until  August  he  worked  on  a  cir- 
cuit near  Baltimore,  then  he  moved  into  the 
city.  Here  he  made  a  new  departure,  by 
preaching  out  of  doors.  He  began  on  the 
commons,  then  in  the  markets,  where  the- 
people  gathered.  He  thus  reached  a  very 
large  class  of  non-churchgoers,  and  gained 
experiences  of  the  open-air  treatment,  which 
served  him  well  on  his  advent  to  Boston,  as 
we  shall  later  see.  Learning  of  the  great 
revival  in  his  home  region,  in  March,  he 
sets  out  for  that  region,  where  he  found 
that  all  his  brothers  and  sisters  had  been 
converted.  He  stayed  until  April,  and 
preached  to  large  congregations  at  Peters- 
burg and  elsewhere,  then  went  back  to  his 
Baltimore  work,  where  he  found  the  revival 
fire  had  preceded  him. 

At  the  Conference  which  met  in  Balti- 
more, September  9,  1788,  he  was  again 
urged  to  be  ordained,  but  again  modestly 
declined.  At  the  Conference  in  Philadel- 
phia the  same  month.  Bishop  Asbury 
labored  with  him  in  vain  on  the  same  sub- 
ject. He  was  appointed  to  Flanders  Cir- 
cuit. Here  he  seems  for  the  first  time  to 
come  into  contact  with  Calvinism.  He  met 
it  later  in  New  England,  and  this  experience 
doubtless  helped  prepare  him  for  the  future 


An  Itinerant  Preacher  61 


conflict.  He  here  met  with  a  pecuhar  case 
of  conversion.  An  Indian  squaw  was  con- 
victed of  sin.  She  knew  only  two  English 
words — "January"  and  "February."  She 
made  them  her  prayer,  "January,  Febru- 
ary!" until  God  answered  her,  and  for- 
gave her  sins.  On  March  12,  1789,  he  ob- 
served his  birthday  with  prayer,  praise,  and 
reconsecration  to  his  work.  He  is  now 
thirty-one  years  old,  and  at  the  next  Con- 
ference is  to  receive  the  appointment  which 
has  made  him  famous  in  American  Meth- 
odist history. 


CHAPTER  IX 


SENT  TO  NEW  ENGLAND 

On  May  28,  1789,  in  John  Street  Church, 
New  York  city,  the  fortieth  Methodist 
Conference  in  America  began  its  session. 
Bishops  Coke  and  Asbury  were  present, 
also  Richard  Whatcoat.  Twenty  in  all  were 
present  at  this  second  Conference  held  in 
New  York,  that  of  1788  being  the  first. 
Three  important  things  were  done  there  in 
1789.  A  Book  Room  was  decided  on  for 
Philadelphia,  and  John  Dickins  appointed 
book  steward.  A  congratulatory  address 
was  ordered  prepared,  and  presented  to 
George  Washington,  who  was  inaugurated 
President  of  the  United  States  on  April  30. 
Bishops  Coke  and  Asbury  duly  presented  it. 
It  was  the  first  received  from  any  branch 
of  the  Church.  Coke  was  criticised  in 
America  and  in  England  for  having  part  in 
this,  but  Asbury  defended  him. 

The  third  transaction  done  there  which 
makes  it  memorable  is  that  Jesse  Lee  was 
sent  to  New  England.  In  his  most  valu- 
able, and  now  very  rare,  Short  History  of 
62 


Sent  to  New  England  63 


the  Iklethodists,  which  made  him  the  first 
American  IMethodist  historian,  on  page  142, 
he  writes:  "We  had  one  new  circuit  in  Con- 
necticut, called  Stamford,  which  was  the 
first  that  was  ever  formed  in  that  State, 
or  any  of  the  New  England  States.  It 
was  my  lot  to  go  to  that  circuit  alone, 
and  to  labor  by  myself.  Another  preacher 
was  appointed  to  the  circuit  with  me, 
but  he  failed  and  never  came,  and  I  had 
to  labor  and  suffer  alone  amongst  a 
strange  people."  Stamford  Circuit  "con- 
sisted of  some  small  classes  held  in  Stam- 
ford and  Sharon."  They  were  connected 
with  circuits  in  New  York  State  and  not 
yet  separated  as  New  England  societies. 
These  small  classes  were  the  germ  cells  of 
New  England  Methodism,  carried  over  from 
the  adjoining  State,  and  to  be  developed 
under  the  care  of  the  first  itinerant  sent 
there,  Jesse  Lee. 

There  were  reformers  before  Luther  and 
the  Reformation.  There  were  Methodist 
prophets  in  New  England  before  Jesse  Lee. 
The  most  ancient  of  these  were  Charles 
Wesley,  in  1736,  and  George  W'hitefield,  in 
1740.  Shall  we  call  these  the  major  proph- 
ets, and  call  Richard  Boardman,  in  1772, 
William  Black,  in  1784,  Cornelius  Cook,  in 


64  Jesse  Lee 


1787,  and  Freeborn  Garrettson,  in  1787  and 
1790,  the  minor  prophets?  All  their  voices 
were  heard  crying  in  that  Methodist  wilder- 
ness before  that  of  Jesse  Lee,  the  Apostle 
to  New  England,  in  1789.  The  prophets 
came  and  went.  This  apostle  came  to  stay, 
and,  "if  possible,  to  establish  the  Methodist 
doctrine  and  discipline,  and  to  raise  up  a 
people  for  the  Lord"  in  that  new  and  hard 
field. 

Methodism  had  been  organized  in  Old 
England  fifty  years,  and  in  America 
twenty-three  years,  before  it  was  definitely 
determined  to  establish  it  in  New  England. 
The  work  in  Old  England  and  in  the  Middle 
and  South  Atlantic  States  grew  so  rapidly 
that  workers  could  not  be  spared  for  New 
England,  which  was  better  supplied  with 
churches  than  many  other  parts.  It  was 
regarded  as  walled  up  high  by  Calvinistic 
battlements,  which  looked  very  forbidding 
to  all  who  dared  to  enter  it,  excepting  at  the 
five  points,  which  were  very  zealously 
guarded. 

The  man  who  dared  to  go  up  and  possess 
a  part  of  this  goodly  land  for  God  and  for 
Methodism  was  Jesse  Lee.  His  was  not  a 
sudden  but  a  very  deliberately  made  deci- 
sion.   Since  talking  with  that  clerk  from 


Sent  to  New  Elngland  65 


Massachusetts,  in  Cheraw,  some  years  be- 
fore, he  had  felt  drawn  to  New  England. 

Let  us  now  take  a  few  snapshots  at  him, 
as  he  goes  forth  on  his  mission.  He  went 
alone,  though  a  young  man  had  been  ap- 
pointed with  him.  Perhaps  this  young 
man's  courage,  like  that  of  John  Mark,  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  failed  him  at  the 
thought  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way.  All 
alone,  in  June,  Jesse  Lee  entered  New  Eng- 
land for  the  first  time.  On  June  17,  1789, 
he  is  at  Norwalk,  Connecticut,  which  State 
is  to  have  the  lasting  honor  of  his  first  New 
England  labors.  There,  a  IMr.  Rogers  was 
not  willing  he  should  preach  in  his  home, 
and  Mrs.  Rogers  would  not  consent  to  his 
preaching  in  an  old  house  of  hers  near  by. 
Then  an  orchard  was  refused  him.  Noth- 
ing daunted,  he  betook  himself  to  the  public 
highway,  and  under  the  shade  of  an  apple 
tree  began  an  open-air  service.  His  sing- 
ing and  prayer  drew  a  tolerable  congrega- 
tion, who  quietly  listened  to  this  his  first 
sermon  in  Norwalk.  We  say  his  first  ser- 
mon, because,  contrary  to  many  of  the  his- 
tories, this  was  not  the  first  Methodist 
.sermon  in  Norwalk.  The  Arminian  Maga- 
zine of  London,  1791,  contains  the  journals 
of  the  Rev.  William  Black,  of  England  and 


66  Jesse  Lee 


NQva  Scotia.  Black,  on  his  way  to  the 
famous  Christmas  Conference,  in  1784, 
arrived  at  New  York  on  October  20,  and 
preached  a  few  times.  He  then  went  to 
Long  Island  "with  Brother  Cox."  He 
traveled  two  or  three  days.  "Preaching," 
he  says,  "at  Serringtown,  Cow-Harbour, 
and  Huntingdon,  I  crossed  the  Sound  into 
Connecticut.  I  preached  in  the  evening  at 
North- Walk,  and  the  next  morning  rode  on 
to  Stratfield.  I  preached  six  or  seven  times 
among  the  people  here,  and  then  returned 
to  New  York.  Dr.  Coke  had  arrived  there, 
and  two  other  preachers  from  England :  and 
were  gone  on  toward  Baltimore."  This 
shows  us  that  Black  preached  at  Norwalk 
about  two  and  a  half  years  before  Cornelius 
Cook,  and  four  and  a  half  years  before  Lee 
opened  his  commission  for  New  England 
there,  at  Norwalk,  June  17,  1789.  Lee's 
text  there  was,  "Ye  must  be  born  again" 
(John  3,  7).  This  was  his  first  message  to 
New  England.  At  the  close  of  the  service 
he  told  the  people  he  would  preach  again 
in  two  weeks  in  the  same  place  if  no  house 
should  be  opened  to  him.  He  writes:  "I 
felt  happy  that  we  were  favored  with  so 
comfortable  a  place.  Who  knows  but  I 
shall  yet  have  a  place  in  this  town  where  I 


Sent  to  New  England  67 


may  lay  my  head?"  Could  he  now  visit 
Norwalk  he  would  find  many  homes  among 
the  good  Methodists  there. 

The  next  day,  June  i8,  Lee  rode  sixteen 
miles  to  Fairfield.  He  put  up  at  Penfield's 
tavern.  He  obtained  the  courthouse  for  a 
service,  and  got  the  schoolmaster  to  send 
word  home  by  the  children  that  he  would 
preach  at  six  o'clock.  Mrs.  Penfield  asked 
him  if  he  had  a  liberal  education.  "I  told 
her  I  had  just  enough  to  carry  me  through 
the  country."  Later  when  at  different 
places  he  was  questioned  by  pastors  and 
village  lawyers  about  his  knowledge  of  the 
languages  he  replied  to  them  in  broken 
Dutch,  which  he  had  learned  in  the  South, 
and  which  they  mistook  for  Hebrew,  and 
then  passed  him  up  in  scholarship.  Often 
his  ready  wit  thus  came  to  his  help.  After 
Mrs.  Penfield  had  heard  him  preach  she 
was  so  pleased  that  she  urged  him  to  visit 
her  sister  and  preach  at  her  house.  His 
second  text  in  Connecticut  was  Rom.  6.  23. 
The  service  began  with  the  schoolmaster 
and  three  or  four  women  for  a  tongrega- 
tion;  before  the  close  thirty  or  forty 
had  gathered.  The  Penfields  refused 
pay  for  his  board  and  bed,  and  asked  him  to 
call  again.    Friday  found  him  at  Mrs. 


68 


Jesse  Lee 


Timothy  Wheeler's,  sister  of  his  hostess  of 
yesterday.  Here  he  received  a  warm  wel- 
come, and  found  results  of  Mr.  Black's 
preaching  in  1784.  They  had  been  wishing 
for  a  Methodist  preacher  to  come  ever 
since  Black  left  them. 

The  following  Sunday,  June  21,  found 
him  in  New  Haven,  the  Athens  of  the 
State.  It  was  a  stormy  day,  but  at  five 
o'clock  he  preached  in  the  courthouse  to  a 
considerable  congregation,  from  Amos  5.  6 : 
"Seek  ye  the  Lord,  and  ye  shall  live."  The 
president  of  the  college,  a  Congregational 
minister,  and  many  students  were  in  his 
congregation.  "The  people  paid  great  at- 
tention to  what  I  said,  and  several  expressed 
their  satisfaction."  After  a  few  days'  ab- 
sence he  is  again  at  New  Haven,  preaching 
in  a  Congregational  chapel  secured  by 
friends,  who  also  had  the  statehouse  bell 
rung  to  call  the  people  to  the  service.  The 
people  were  pleased,  but  no  one  invited  him 
home  with  them  after  service.  But  he  had 
not  been  back  in  his  tavern  room  long  be- 
fore David  Beecher,  the  blacksmith,  came. 
Lee  says:  "He  asked  me  to  go  home  with 
him,  and  said  he  would  be  willing  to  enter- 
tain me  when  I  came  to  town  again.  I 
went  with  him,  and  his  wife  was  very  kind." 


Sent  to  New  England  69 


This  was  Beecher-like,  open-hearted  and 
open-minded  to  the  truth  whencesoever  it 
came.  David  Beecher,  the  blacksmith,  of 
New  Haven,  was  Henry  Ward  Beecher's 
grandfather,  as  Henry  Ward  Beecher  once 
gladly  acknowledged.  On  the  Wednesday 
after  his  first  sermon  in  New  Haven,  Lee 
went  over  the  stony  way  to  Reading,  and 
preached  in  a  schoolhouse  at  six  o'clock. 
An  old  minister  here  was  his  host.  This 
minister  was  not  himself  a  dancer,  but  was 
a  strong  advocate  of  that  art.  Here  Lee 
organized  his  second  class  meeting  in  Con- 
necticut before  the  end  of  the  year  1789. 
From  Wednesday,  June  24,  to  Thursday, 
July  2,  he  had  preached  at  Reading,  Dan- 
bury,  Ridgefield,  Rockwell,  Canaan,  Middle- 
sex and  again  at  Norwalk  and  Fairfield. 
He  "had  some  hope  that  an  impression  was 
made  in  each  of  these  places." 

On  Friday,  July  3,  "I  preached  at  Strat- 
field,  at  the  house  of  Deacon  Hawley.  It 
was  filled  with  hearers."  He  had  a  good 
time  preaching.  "The  greater  part  of  them 
kneeled  down  when  we  prayed,  a  thing 
that  I  suppose  some  of  them  never  did  be- 
fore in  public."  The  principal  village  of 
Stratfield  was  Stratford,  whither  he  went 
on  the  morrow.    He  entered  the  village 


70  Jesse  Lee 


rather  dejected,  but  secured  the  town  house 
fof  a  service,  and  sent  a  man  out  on  his 
own  horse  to  call  the  villagers  to  the  service. 
The  Congregationalists  urged  him  to  use 
their  church,  and,  though  he  declined  for 
that  time,  they  rung  their  bell  at  sunset  to 
call  the  people  to  worship.  He  was  greatly 
helped  in  that  service.  At  its  close  Solomon 
Curtis  invited  him  to  make  his  house  his 
home,  and  then  took  him  by  the  hand  and 
led  him  there.  He  writes:  "I  don't  know 
that  I  have  had  so  much  kindness  showed 
me  in  a  new  place  since  I  came  to  the 
State." 

Here  at  Stratfield,  on  September  20  of 
this  same  year,  1789,  Lee  formed  his  first 
class  meeting  in  the  State  of  Connecticut. 
He  held  a  "kind  of  class  meeting"  that  day 
with  about  twenty  persons.  The  next  day 
he  really  organized,  with  three  women  for 
members,  who,  he  writes,  "appeared  willing 
to  bear  the  cross,  and  have  their  names  cast 
out  as  evil,  for  the  Lord's  sake."  Devoted 
women  were  the  first  Methodists  organized 
into  a  society  by  Lee  in  the  State  of  Con- 
necticut. This  must  be  written  to  their 
great  honor.  The  first  man  he  received 
was  at  Reading,  three  months  later,  Decem- 
ber 28 ;  his  name  was  Aaron  San  ford.  He 


Sent  to  New  England  71 


became  a  preacher,  and  the  ancestor  of 
Methodist  preachers  down  to  this  date. 
His  brother,  and  also  a  lawyer,  Samuel  S. 
Smith,  soon  joined  with  him.  They  also 
became  preachers.  Greenfield,  Newfield, 
and  Mil  ford  are  visited  within  about  three 
months.  The  result  of  this  prospecting  tour 
was  a  new  circuit,  the  first  real  circuit  in 
New  England.  It  included  Norwalk,  Fair- 
field, Stratford,  Milford,  Reading,  Danbury, 
and  Canaan,  besides  some  small  parishes  like 
"Mutton  Lane."  This  was  now  called  Read- 
ing Circuit  instead  of  the  Stamford  Circuit, 
to  which  Lee  had  been  appointed,  and  which 
then  existed  only  on  paper. 

During  these  months,  and  until  February 
27,  1790,  more  than  eight  months  in  all,  he 
was  alone  in  the  work,  but  hoping  help 
would  come  from  the  South.  Having 
mapped  out  his  first  circuit,  on  the  last  day 
of  August  he  says,  "I  set  out  on  a  tour  for 
Rhode  Island  State."  He  writes  of  Guil- 
ford, and  of  Lieutenant  Hopsall,  and  the 
good  Baptists  he  found  there ;  also  of  Kill- 
ingworth,  Saybrook,  Lyme,  and  New  Lon- 
don, and  of  kind  and  helpful  Jonathan 
Brooks,  who  there  received  him.  He  spent 
a  good  week  in  Rhode  Island,  then  returned 
to  Connecticut. 


72  Jesse  Lee 


Friday,  October  23,  finds  him  at  David 
Olds's  in  Weston.  At  this  place,  which 
later  was  called  Easton,  was  built  in  1790 
the  first  Methodist  chapel  in  New  England. 

This  edifice  was  properly  called  "Lee's 
Chapel."  Not  Boston  but  Easton,  not 
]\Iassachusetts  but  Connecticut,  has  the 
honor  of  having  in  it  the  first  Methodist 
meetinghouse  in  New  England.  It  was 
near  the  upper  edge  of  Stratfield. 

February  27,  1790,  was  a  happy  day  to 
Jesse  Lee.  Of  that  day  he  writes:  "Three 
preachers  came  to  my  help  from  Maryland, 
namely,  Jacob  Brush,  an  elder,  George 
Roberts,  and  Samuel  Smith,  young  preach- 
ers. They  met  me  at  a  quarterly  meeting  at 
a  place  called  Dantown,  on  the  state  line 
between  New  York  and  Connecticut.  Their 
presence  was  reviving  to  the  brethren,  and 
to  me  in  particular."  Certainly  it  would 
be  after  months  of  lonely  pioneer  travels 
and  toils  and  sufferings.  As  a  specimen, 
on  December  24,  a  cold  wintry  night, 
after  preaching  at  Fairfield,  he  writes: 
"To-night,  thanks  be  to  God!  I  was  in- 
vited by  a  widow  woman  to  put  up  at  her 
house.  This  is  the  first  invitation  I  have 
had  since  I  first  came  to  the  place,  which 
is  between  six  and  seven  months.    O  my 


Sent  to  New  England  73 


Lord,  send  more  laborers  into  this  part  of 
thy  vineyard.  I  love  to  break  up  new 
ground  and  hunt  the  lost  souls  in  New  Eng- 
land, though  it  is  hard  work;  but  when 
Christ  is  with  me,  hard  things  are  made 
easy,  and  rough  ways  made  smooth." 

In  one  of  his  Connecticut  tours  he  influ- 
enced another  blacksmith,  one  of  whose 
sons  became  eminent.  His  name  was 
Bangs.  He  would  not  let  his  family  hear 
the  Methodist,  but  one  of  his  sons,  then 
about  twelve  years  old,  heard  of  him  and 
never  forgot  him.  Later,  this  son,  Nathan, 
became  Dr.  Nathan  Bangs,  who  took  up 
Lee's  well-begun  work  in  New  England,  and 
later  became  the  second  great  historian  of 
American  ]\Iethodism.  John  Kendrick 
Bangs  is  his  grandson. 

It  was  a  glad  day  for  Lee  when  the  rein- 
forcements from  the  South  came  to  him. 
He  writes:  "No  one  knows  but  God  and 
myself  what  comfort  and  joy  I  felt  at  their 
arrival."  There  were  now  more  preachers 
than  classes,  and  only  about  two  members 
to  each  preacher,  but  the  field  was  large  and 
a  part  of  it  well  mapped  out  for  them  by 
Lee.  When  Lee  had  initiated  his  colleagues 
he  went  forth  to  break  up  new  ground. 

The  Conference  year  which  began  with 


74  Jesse  Lee 


Lee's  appointment  to  New  England,  in  May, 
1789,  was  a  long  one ;  it  did  not  close  until 
October  4,  1790,  when  it  again  met  in  New 
York.  For  more  than  eight  of  the  seven- 
teen months  Lee  had  been  alone  in  the  work. 
At  the  Conference  of  1790  four  new  circuits 
had  been  formed.  The  New  Haven  Cir- 
cuit covered  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles, 
and  included  three  cities  and  five  thickly 
settled  towns,  besides  smaller  places.  This 
circuit  was  formed  in  Alarch,'  1790;  it 
"extended  along  the  post  road  from  Mil- 
ford  to  Hartford."  The  Hartford  Cir- 
cuit, which  took  in  both  sides  of  the  Con- 
necticut River,  was  formed  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  spring  of  1790.  The  Litch- 
field Circuit,  "which  took  in  the  north- 
west part  of  Connecticut  State,  was  formed 
about  the  beginning  of  the  spring  of  1790." 
The  fourth  circuit  added  this  first  Confer- 
ence year  of  Lee  in  New  England  was  the 
Boston  Circuit. 

Before  speaking  of  Boston,  let  us  glance 
at  places  visited  by  Lee  during  this  Con- 
ference year,  May,  1789,  to  October,  1790. 
We  can  but  mention  chief  places  visited  and 
preached  in  by  this  pioneer  and  founder  in 
those  eight  months  after  his  helpers  came. 
March  3  finds  him  in  Wethersfield,  then 


Sent  to  New  England  75 


again  in  Hartford,  Farmington,  Derby, 
Milford,  then  in  New  Haven  again.  In 
April  he  goes  out  of  the  State  into  Wind- 
ham County,  Vermont,  where  he  stays  two 
days;  then  passing  through  a  part  of  New 
Hampshire  he  entered  Massachusetts  for 
the  first  time,  and  on  May  30  we  find  him 
at  Wilbraham.  He  writes  his  first  impres- 
sions: "Not  so  much  satisfaction  in  jNlassa- 
chusetts  as  in  Connecticut,"  where  we  find 
him  again  on  I\Iay  10,  at  Middletown.  Had 
he  known  that  at  Wilbraham  there  would 
soon  be  the  W^esleyan  Academy,  now  the 
oldest  in  the  Methodist  Church,  and  at 
Middletown,  Connecticut,  Wesleyan  Uni- 
versity, now  the  oldest  ^^lethodist  university, 
how  he  would  have  rejoiced!  The  first 
^lethodist  sermon  preached  in  Middletown, 
on  December  7,  1789,  was  one  of  the  most 
fruitful  seeds  dropped  into  the  Nutmeg 
State.  In  June,  1790,  he  set  his  face  toward 
the  east.  Norwich,  New  London,  Stoning- 
ton  are  visited,  then  on  into  Rhode  Island, 
at  Newport,  Bristol,  Warren,  and  Provi- 
dence.  Surely  he  was  a  traveling  preacher. 

April  2,  1790,  at  Tolland,  Connecticut,  he 
found  remnants  of  George  Whitefield's 
work  in  the  "New  Lights."  A  ^Methodist 
church  was  built  here  in  1794. 


CHAPTER  X 


FIRST  ENTERS  BOSTON 

Being  now  reinforced  with  helpers,  Mr. 
Lee  left  them  to  carry  on  the  well-begun 
work  while  he  went  forth  to  open  up  new 
fields  of  labor.  On  Friday,  July  9,  1790,  he 
entered  Boston  for  the  first  time.  Its  popu- 
lation was  then  less  than  twenty  thousand. 
Just  before  he  came  Mr.  Garrettson  had 
visited  Boston,  and  before  leaving  had 
provided  a  lodging  for  Lee,  and  also  a  place 
to  preach  in.  He  also  met  Lee  on  his  way 
to  Boston  and  told  him  of  these  places. 
Thrift  does  not  seem  to  have  known  of 
Garrettson's  visit  and  preparations  for  Lee, 
and  of  his  meeting  him  on  the  way  to 
Boston.  Mr.  Lee  soon  announced  that  he 
would  preach  on  the  Common,  on  Sunday, 
July  II,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening.  He 
had  preached  on  commons  and  in  market 
places  in  the  South.  Although  no  original 
sources  speak  of  the  Old  Elm  Tree,  tradi- 
tion has  alwa3's  said  that  this  was  the  spot 
where  he  placed  the  borrowed  table,  on 
which  he  stood,  and  preached  under  its 
76 


First  Enters  Boston  77 


umbrageous  shadow,  as  probably  Whitefield 
had  done  before  him.  This  was  the  great 
speaking  place  on  Boston  Common.  The 
present  elm  is  a  scion  of  the  historic  tree. 

At  the  appointed  time,  with  only  a  few 
people  standing  by  to  see  what  the  stranger 
would  do,  he  gave  out  the  hymn  beginning : 

Come,  sinner,  to  the  gospel  feast; 
Let  every  soul  be  Jesus'  guest ; 
There  need  not  one  be  left  behind, 
For  God  hath  bidden  all  mankind. 

Then,  himself  starting  the  tune,  he  made 
Boston  Common  vocal  with  his  sonorous 
voice,  as  it  called  the  people  together  by 
holy  song.  Then  he  devoutly  knelt  and 
prayed — such  a  prayer!  Who  would  not 
like  to  have  heard  it  ?  Then,  taking  out  his 
pocket  Bible,  he  read  the  Scripture  lesson, 
after  which  he  probably  "lined  out"  the 
hymn : 

Blow  ye  the  trumpet,  blow ! 

The  gladly  solemn  sound 
Let  all  the  nations  know, 

To  earth's  remotest  bound, 
The  year  of  jubilee  is  come! 
Return,  ye  ransomed  sinners,  home. 

Now  the  congregation  has  greatly  in- 
creased. He  announces  his  text.  It  is  not 
recorded.   Perhaps  it  was  the  same  he  used 


78  Jesse  Lee 


for  his  first  sermon  in  New  England:  "Ye 
must  be  born  again."  His  congregation, 
when  he  closed  that  service,  he  estimated 
at  between  two  and  three  thousand  persons 
— the  population  was  less  than  twenty 
thousand.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  wrote 
that  figures,  like  greens,  shrink  greatly  in 
boiling.  Guessed-at  congregations  usually 
shrink  greatly  in  counting;  but  we  quote 
the  histories,  and  keep  an  open  mind. 

The  new  preacher  preached  what  were  to 
them  new  doctrines,  such  as  free  grace,  full 
salvation,  and  blessed  assurance  of  it  after 
it  is  obtained.  It  is  said  that,  as  he  was 
reading  the  couplet  which  says, 

There  need  not  one  be  left  behind, 
For  God  hath  bidden  all  mankind, 

a  Calvinist  present  shouted,  "That  isn't 
true!  It  is  only  for  the  elect!"  or  some 
such  utterance.  But  Jesse  Lee  and  the  Meth- 
odist Church  he  represented  believed  that 
"whosoever  will"  are  the  elect,  and  whoso- 
ever will  not,  and  they  alone,  are  the  non- 
elect  ;  that  salvation  is  provided  for  every 
man's  body  and  soul ;  that  a  believer  may 
know  his  sins  forgiven;  and  that  a  Chris- 
tian may  be  made  perfect  in  love  in  this 
life.   These  were  doctrines  unknown  in  the 


First  Enters  Boston 


79 


New  England  of  those  days.  This  was 
New  Testament  HberaHsm.  These  and  all 
such  doctrines  were  then  counted  as  heresy, 
and  the  Methodists  were  called  heretics. 
Later  the  cry  went  out  that  six  hundred 
Methodist  preachers  had  invaded  New 
England,  preaching  damnable  doctrines  and 
picking  men's  pockets,  and  people  were  cau- 
tioned to  beware  of  them  and  to  give  them 
no  quarter. 

When  he  had  finished  his  first  sermon 
under  the  Old  Elm  he  announced  that  he 
would  preach  there  again  on  the  next  Sun- 
day. On  Monday  morning  he  went  to 
Salem  and  preached  in  Mr.  Joshua  Spald- 
ing's pulpit,  the  present  Tabernacle  Church. 
Then,  on  to  Ipswich,  and  to  Newburyport, 
where  Mr.  Murray,  the  Presbyterian  min- 
ister, learning  he  was  a  follower  of  Wesley, 
offered  to  treat  him  as  a  gentleman,  but  not 
as  a  preacher  by  inviting  him  to  his  pulpit. 
An  added  reason  was  that  he  had  heard  of 
one  of  his  kind  who  had  held  meetings  in 
four  different  places  in  one  day.  Mr.  Lee 
told  him  he  was  the  very  man.  He  secured 
the  courthouse  and  preached  his  first  ser- 
mon there  on  Thursday,  July  15.  He  seems 
to  have  preached  in  Portsmouth,  New 
Hampshire,  before  this  service.  During  his 


80 


Jesse  Lee 


absence  three  of  those  who  had  consented  to 
let  him  have  the  courthouse  tried  to  ex- 
clude him,  but,  a  crowd  having  gathered, 
one  of  the  selectmen  opened  the  doors  to 
him  and  them.  He  also  preached  in  the 
same  place  at  six  o'clock  the  next  morn- 
ing, a  new  thing  in  the  place,  but  a  great 
many  attended.  After  preaching  he  went 
to  Whitefield's  vault,  which  is  under  the 
Communion  table  of  Mr.  Murray's  church. 
Mr.  Murray  and  Mr.  Marshall,  the  Sepa- 
ratist minister,  went  with  him.  Mr.  Lee 
was  allowed  to  bring  away  a  small  piece 
of  Whitefield's  burial  gown.  Having 
entered  that  vault,  and  handled  White- 
field's  bones,  we  can  easily  imagine  Lee's 
thoughts  and  feelings  there.  On  Friday, 
1 6th,  Lee  preached  in  Danvers.  On  Satur- 
day, 17th,  he  preached  in  Marblehead. 
These  dates  are  given  by  Lee.  On  Sunday, 
July  18,  he  again  preached  for  the  second 
time  on  Boston  Common,  "to  about  three 
thousand  people."  During  that  week  he 
preached  in  a  private  house  and  in  a  vacant 
Baptist  church  in  Boston.  On  Tuesday, 
20th,  he  preached  in  a  private  house  in 
Charlestown,  now  a  part  of  Boston.  On  the 
next  Sabbath  we  find  him  preaching  for  the 
third  time  on  Boston  Common. 


First  Enters  Boston  81 


After  his  third  Sunday  in  Boston  he  went 
to  the  quarterly  meeting  at  Middlefield, 
which  was  held  on  the  23d  of  July.  He 
preached  at  Enfield  and  Hartford  on  his 
way.  From  July  to  October  we  find  him 
toiling  in  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  New 
Hampshire,  and  Vermont,  opening  new 
preaching  places.  At  the  close  of  the  six- 
teen months  between  the  Conferences  he 
found  he  had  traveled  several  thousand 
miles,  and  preached  in  six  States,  "and  in 
chief  part  of  the  large  towns  in  New  Eng- 
land." The  Conference  met  again  in  New 
York,  October  4,  1790.  Here  he  reported 
his  work.  He  there  consented  to  be  ordained 
deacon  in  private,  and  elder  in  public,  on 
the  next  day.  To  please  him.  Bishop  As- 
bury  doffed  his  cassock,  gown,  and  bands 
at  his  ordination.  Mr.  Lee  was  a  lover  of 
simplicity,  and  thought  that  such  para- 
phernalia would  not  appeal  to  the  people 
whom  they  sought  to  save.  He  was  then 
appointed  to  the  Boston  Circuit.  Concern- 
ing this  his  second  coming  to  New  England 
and  to  Boston  he  writes:  "I  took  my  sta- 
tion on  the  13th  day  of  November,  1790. 
I\Ir.  Freeborn  Garrettson  had  visited  that 
town  in  the  course  of  the  preceding  summer 
and  preached.   I  made  them  a  visit  in  July." 


82 


Jesse  Lee 


This  time  he  met  with  a  very  cold  recep- 
tion in  classic  Boston.  He  had  not  a  friend 
to  greet  him,  nor  a  home  to  go  to.  He  had 
hard  work  to  find  a  place  where  to  lay  his 
head,  and  much  harder  work  to  find  a 
house  to  preach  in.  He  had  a  big  ap- 
pointment, but  it  was  all  out  of  doors. 
True,  it  was  Boston,  which  might  perhaps 
compensate  him  for  some  disadvantages. 
On  Sunday  morning  he  went  to  a  Universal- 
ist  church  in  Boston.  In  the  evening  he 
found  a  private  house  to  preach  in.  During 
the  whole  of  the  next  week,  and  for  a  whole 
month,  he  sought  in  vain  for  a  place  to 
establish  a  Methodist  meeting.  December 
weather,  in  New  England,  was  too  cold  for 
services  on  the  Common. 

It  was  exceedingly  hard  for  Methodism, 
even  by  the  agency  of  Jesse  Lee,  to  get 
established  in  Boston.   He  writes : 

"We  preached  a  long  time  in  Boston  be- 
fore we  formed  a  society,  but  on  the  13th 
day  of  January,  1792,  we  joined  a  few  in 
society,  and  after  a  short  time  they  began  to 
increase  in  numbers.  We  met  with  uncom- 
mon difficulties  here  from  the  beginning, 
for  the  want  of  a  convenient  house  to 
preach  in.  We  began  in  private  houses  and 
could  seldom  keep  possession  of  them  long. 


First  Enters  Boston  83 


At  last  we  obtained  liberty  to  hold  meetings 
in  a  schoolhouse;  but  that  too  was  soon 
denied  us.  We  then  rented  a  chamber  in 
the  north  end  of  the  town,  where  we  con- 
tinued to  meet  a  considerable  time  regularly. 
The  society  then  undertook  to  get  them  a 
meetinghouse,  but  being  poor,  and  but  few 
in  number,  they  could  do  but  little.  We 
begged  money  for  them  in  Baltimore,  on 
the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland,  and  in 
Delaware  State,  in  Philadelphia,  and  in 
New  York,  and  by  these  exertions  we  were 
able  to  proceed  and  began  the  building.  On 
the  28th  day  of  August,  1795,  the  corner 
stone  was  laid  of  the  first  Methodist  meet- 
inghouse in  Boston,  which  was  fixed  at  the 
north  end  and  was  built  of  wood  forty-six 
feet  by  thirty-six,  with  galleries  in  front, 
and  in  both  sides  of  the  house. 

"After  we  began  to  preach  in  the  new 
meetinghouse  we  had  large  congregations 
to  hear  us,  when  we  preached  at  night ;  but 
it  was  some  time  before  we  had  the  house 
filled  with  steady  hearers  on  the  Sabbath 
day.  Most  of  the  people  that  were  fond  of 
hearing  us,  did  not  like  to  leave  their 
own  meetinghouses  when  their  minister 
preached." 


CHAPTER  XI 


INVITED  TO  LYNN 

Jesse  Lee  had  now  come  to  Massa- 
chusetts to  stay.  From  Boston  he 
moved  on  to  Lynn.  It  was  on  Saturday, 
the  13th  of  November,  1790,  that  he  again 
arrived  in  Boston.  The  next  day  being 
Sunday  he  went  to  hear  a  Universahst,  but 
at  night  "he  preached  to  a  small  company 
in  a  private  house."  He  tried  in  vain  to 
get  a  house  to  preach  in  that  week.  John 
Carnes,  a  Boston  merchant,  entertained  him 
one  evening,  and  "said  he  would  assist  me 
in  anything  he  could."  "The  greater  part 
of  the  week  was  wet,  so  that  I  could  go 
out  but  little.   My  cry  was.  Lord  help  me !" 

Now  came  his  call  to  Lynn.  We  will  let 
him  tell  his  own  story  of  this  call :  "Monday, 
29th  (November),  we  had  a  letter  from  a 
gentleman  in  Lynn,  who  desired  me  to  come 
and  see  him,  and  gave  me  some  encourage- 
ment, for  he  said  he  had  a  desire  to  hear 
some  of  the  Methodists  preach.  I  then  be- 
gan to  think  that  the  Lord  was  about  open- 
ing a  way  for  me  to  preach  in  that  place." 
84 


Invited  to  Lynn  85 


It  has  been  frequently  stated  that  Jesse 
Lee  left  Boston  for  Lynn  on  a  Sunday 
evening;  as  he  had  no  late  evening  service 
in  Boston  that  day.  We  ourselves  have 
written:  "Then  in  the  evening,  leaving  the 
small  congregation  to  whom  he  had 
preached,  and  the  town  which  had  received 
him  so  coldly,  he  set  out  in  the  darkness  for 
Lynn,"  etc.  But,  the  higher  criticism  on 
the  subject  has  revealed,  and  Jesse  Lee 
himself  is  the  revealer,  in  this  case,  that  he 
did  not  leave  Boston  for  Lynn  on  a  Sun- 
day, but  "on  IMonday,  December  13." 

It  was  just  two  weeks  after  his  invita- 
tion before  he  set  out  for  Lynn.  We  are 
somewhat  surprised  at  this.  We  conclude 
that  his  desire  to  open  up  work  in  Boston 
was  such  that  he  felt  he  must  not  leave  that 
city.  Again  we  let  him  tell  his  own  story 
of  his  advent  to  Lynn.  He  writes:  "Mon- 
day, 13th  December,  1790,  about  two 
o'clock  I  left  Boston  and  went  in  the  stage 
to  Benjamin  Johnson's,  in  Lynn,  about 
twelve  miles.  I  got  there  a  little  after  dark, 
and  was  very  gladly  received  by  him  and 
his  family.  I  felt  as  though  I  was  at  home 
as  soon  as  I  arrived.  I  had  not  been  there 
long  before  he  expressed  a  desire  of  having 
a  Methodist  society  set  up  in  the  town. 


86  Jesse  Lee 


though  he  had  not  heard  a  Methodist 
preach  for  nearly  twenty  years.  In  this 
place  I  found  several  persons  that  had  heard 
some  of  our  preachers  in  the  South,  in  past 
years.  Some  of  the  people  consider  it  as  a 
very  favorable  providence  that  I  have  come 
to  Lynn  at  this  time,  and  they  bid  me  wel- 
come with  a  cheerful  heart." 

"Tuesday,  14th.  At  night,  at  Mr.  John- 
son's, I  preached  on  John  3.  17:  'For  God 
sent  not  his  Son  into  the  world  to  condemn 
the  world ;  but  that  the  world  through  him 
might  be  saved.'  I  had  a  good  many 
hearers,  and  great  freedom  in  preaching.  I 
bore  a  public  testimony  against  uncondi- 
tional election  and  reprobation:  and  main- 
tained that  Christ  died  for  all  men,  without 
respect  to  persons.  I  felt  much  of  the 
power  and  love  of  God,  and  earnestly 
begged  the  people  to  turn  from  their  sins, 
and  come  to  Christ.  The  hearers  were  very 
attentive,  and  a  few  of  them  seemed  to  be 
somewhat  alfected.  Bless  the  Lord,  O,  my 
soul !  for  bringing  me  among  this  people." 

Lee  seems  to  have  remained  in  Lynn  for 
a  whole  week,  for  under  date  of  "Wednes- 
day, 22d,"  he  writes:  "I  was  much  pressed 
by  some  persons  to  stay  longer,  and  when 
they^  found  that  I  could  not,  they  earnestly 


Invited  to  Lynn  87 


begged  me  to  come  among  them  again  as 
soon  as  possible.  Several  talked  strongly 
of  forming  a  Methodist  society.  I  let  them 
have  our  rules,  and  left  them  to  think 
further  about  it.  We  then  set  out  in  a 
sleigh,  and  had  a  very  cold,  disagreeable 
ride  to  Boston.  When  I  arrived  in  Boston 
everything  appeared  as  dark  as  when  I  left 
it,  respecting  my  preaching.  I  had  to  get  a 
new  boarding  place.  When  I  settled  my 
past  boarding  I  had  two  shillings  and  a 
penny  left,  which  was  all  that  I  had  some 
days  before.  I  felt  concerned  about  my 
purse,  not  knowing  that  there  was  enough 
in  it  to  discharge  the  debt  due  for  my  board. 
I  was  unwilling  to  let  the  people  know  that 
my  money  was  just  gone,  for  fear  that  they 
should  think  it  was  money  only  I  was  after. 
But  I  soon  felt  confidence  in  God,  that  He 
would  provide  for  me,  though  I  knew  not 
how.  However,  a  man  in  Lynn  offered  to 
buy  a  magazine  that  I  had  for  my  own  use. 
I  very  willingly  parted  with  it,  and  by  that 
means  was  enabled  to  discharge  the  debt. 
And  if  I  can  always  have  two  shillings  by 
me,  beside  paying  all  I  owe,  I  think  I  shall 
be  satisfied." 

Thus  Jesse  Lee's  own  story  of  his  going 
to  Lynn  spoils  some  of  our  rhetoric  about 


88  Jesse  Lee 


that  "dramatic  ride  to  Lynn,  on  a  Sunday 
night,  after  preaching  in  Boston,"  etc.,  but, 
as  if  to  compensate  for  this,  we  find  in 
Stevens's  history  an  incident  of  one  of  Lee's 
day  rides  to  Lynn  which  illustrates  his 
ready  wit  and  humor.  Here  is  the  story, 
which  is  not  apocryphal,  but  is  found  in 
Stevens's  accepted  book.  History  of  Amer- 
ican Methodism,  on  page  250: 

"It  was  on  his  way  from  Boston  to  Lynn 
that  he  had  the  famous  trial  of  wit  with  two 
lawyers.  While  riding  along  he  perceived 
them  hastening  after  him  on  horseback,  with 
evident  expectations  of  amusement.  They 
entered  into  conversation  with  him  on  ex- 
temporaneous speaking,  one  on  each  side 
of  him.  'Don't  you  often  make  mistakes?' 
'Yes.'  'Well,  what  do  you  do  with  them? 
Let  them  go?'  'Sometimes  I  do,'  replied  the 
preacher,  dryly;  'if  they  are  very  important 
I  correct  them;  if  not,  or  if  they  express 
the  truth,  though  differently  from  what  I 
designed,  I  often  let  them  go.  For  instance, 
if  in  preaching  I  should  wish  to  quote  the 
text  which  says,  "The  devil  is  a  liar  and 
the  father  of  it,"  and  should  happen  to  mis- 
quote it  and  say  he  was  a  "lawyer,"  etc., 
why,  it  is  so  near  the  truth  I  should  prob- 
ably let  it  pass.'    'Humph!'  exclaimed  the 


Invited  to  Lynn 


89 


lawyer,  'I  don't  know  whether  you  are  more 
a  knave  or  a  fool.'  'Neither,'  repHed  Lee, 
looking  from  one  to  the  other ;  'I  believe  I 
am  just  between  the  two.'  The  gentlemen 
of  the  bar  looked  at  each  other,  and  were 
soon  in  advance,  hastening  on  their  way." 

He  made  many  trips  to  and  from  Boston 
and  Lynn  that  winter.  (The  electric  cars 
were  not  then  running.)  How  did  he  feel 
when  he  had  no  lawyers  for  company  ?  He 
tells  us  how  he  felt  at  just  about  this  time : 
"I  set  out,  and  my  soul  was  transported 
with  joy;  the  snow  falling,  the  wind  blow- 
ing, prayer  ascending,  faith  increasing, 
grace  descending,  heaven  smiling,  and  love 
abounding."  Isn't  this  the  language  of  one 
of  God's  conquering  heroes? 

This  grand  old  Methodist  father  reminds 
us  of  the  Pilgrim  fathers,  of  whom  it  is 
written  that :  "Amid  the  blinding  snows  of 
winter,  in  which  they  were  knee-deep,  and 
with  the  sleet  hailing  into  their  patient  faces, 

"Amid  the  storm  they  sang, 

And  the  stars  heard  and  the  sea ; 
And  the  sounding  aisles  of  the  dim  woods 
rang 

To  the  anthem  of  the  free." 

Even  so  this  Methodist  father  doubtless 
often  made  the  Lynn  marshes  ring  with 


90  Jesse  Lee 


hallelujahs  as  he  faced  the  northeast 
tempests  which  swept  across  the  coast  at 
his  side  as  he  journeyed  to  and  from 
Lynn  that  winter.  All  honor  to  the 
memory  of  this  Methodist  hero!  All 
honor  to  Lynn,  which  gave  him  his  first 
warm  welcome  to  Massachusetts.  That 
was  probably  a  bitterly  cold  Monday 
afternoon,  December  13,  1790,  when  Jesse 
Lee  took  the  stage  and  went  out  of  cold, 
classic  Boston  to  the  colder  coast  road 
which  led  to  Lynn.  But  he  knew  where  he 
was  going,  and  had  an  invitation  in  his 
pocket,  which  was  more  than  he  had  when 
he  entered  Boston.  His  host,  Benjamin 
Johnson,  lived  on  the  corner  of  Market  and 
Essex  Streets.  On  the  site  of  his  house  now 
stands  the  Exchange  building. 

A  tradition  says  that  Mr.  Johnson  fetched 
him  from  Boston  in  his  sulky;  he  himself 
says,  he  "went  in  the  stage,"  but  he  reached 
there  just  the  same,  and  doubtless,  after 
family  prayers,  retired  for  the  night. 
Rising  bright  and  early,  he  might  have  been 
seen  upon  the  street  next  morning. 

Who  was  this  Benjamin  Johnson,  to  whom 
Massachusetts  owes  so  much?  He  was  a 
shoe  manufacturer  in  Lynn,  who  is  said  to 
have  owned  three  coasters,  which  he  loaded 


Invited  to  Lynn  91 


with  shoes  and  took  to  points  on  the  eastern 
coast  and  sold.  He  would  be  away  from 
Lynn  four  or  even  six  months  at  a  time.  It 
was  probably  on  one  of  such  trips  that  he 
tasted  the  good  ]\Iethodism  which  he  desired 
to  share  with  his  Lynn  neighbors.  It  seems 
to  have  agreed  with  the  Johnson  family, 
for  not  only  was  Benjamin  the  one  who 
introduced  Lee  to  Lynn  and  the  chief 
donor  toward  the  first  church,  but  his  son, 
Legare,  or  "Legree,"  as  he  was  called,  was 
a  leader  in  the  erection  of  the  second  church 
building  on  the  same  site. 

Mr.  Johnson's  house  soon  became  too 
cramped,  and  they  adjourned  to  the  barn  in 
Essex  Street.  On  February  20,  1791,  the 
first  class  meeting  was  formed.  Its  eight 
members  were  his  host  and  hostess,  Enoch 
Mudge  (honored  name!)  and  wife,  and 
four  women.  This. was  the  first  Methodist 
society  in  ^Massachusetts.  One  week  later 
twenty  were  added.  By  May  9  it  had 
fifty-eight  members.  On  that  same  date 
seventy  men  took  certificates,  which  read : 

This  may  certify  that  Moses  Goodrich,  of 
Lynn,  attends  public  worship  with  the  Methodists 
in  Lynn  and  freely  contributes  to  the  support 
of  their  minist^\^ 

Signed  in  behalf  of  the  society, 

JESSE  LEE,  Elder. 


92  Jesse  Lee 


By  these  they  were  relieved  from  pay- 
ing taxes  to  support  the  Congregational 
minister,  whom  they  did  not  like. 

Where  was  Boston  all  this  time?  Be- 
hind in  the  Methodist  race,  for  her  first 
society  was  not  organized  until  July  13, 
1792,  and  the  corner  stone  of  her  first 
chapel,  whicli  was  in  Methodist  Alley,  now 
Hanover  Avenue,  was  not  laid  until  August 
28,  1795.  After  many  hard  struggles  it 
was  dedicated  May  15,  1796.  Eighteen 
Annual  Conferences  have  been  held  in  Lynn, 
and,  excepting  that  of  1873,  held  in  Saint 
Paul's,  all  were  held  in  the  First  Church. 

Mr.  Johnson's  house,  on  the  corner  of 
Market  and  Essex  Streets,  was  demolished 
in  the  spring  of  1847.  The  first  chapel,  into 
which  they  moved  from  the  barn  adjoining 
this  house,  was  succeeded  by  the  "Lynn 
Common  Church,"  now  "Lee  Hall."  It  was 
abandoned  for  the  present  First  Church, 
Lynn,  which  was  dedicated  in  February, 
1879,  and  is  an  honor  to  the  city,  the  proud 
old  mother  of  nine  Methodist  churches  in 
the  "City  of  Shoes."  Jesse  Lee  and  his 
host  are  fittingly  commemorated  by  tab- 
lets in  the  church,  cut  from  fine  Carrara 
marble. 

The  first  Conference  in  New  England 


Invited  to  Lynn  93 


was  held  in  Lynn  chapel,  and  began  August 
2,  1792.  How  glad  Asbury  and  they  all  felt 
to  have  a  chapel  of  their  own  to  meet  in! 
Asbury  writes  that  they  had  "the  outside 
of  the  house  completed."  The  venerable 
Asbury  is  surrounded  by  eight  itinerants. 
Close  to  him  sat  Pioneer  Jesse  Lee.  Near 
him  was  Hope  Hull,  "the  Summerfield  of 
New  England,"  "attractive  with  the  beauty 
of  talent  and  holiness."  Menzies  Raynor, 
from  the  Hartford  Circuit,  was  there. 
Close  to  him  was  John  Allen,  the  Boa- 
nerges from  Needham  Circuit.  We  are  not 
sure  that  Jeremiah  Cosden  and  Lemuel 
Smith  were  there.  The  Conference  began 
on  Thursday  and  closed  with  a  red-hot 
revival  meeting  on  Sunday  evening.  The 
bishop  preached  in  the  forenoon  and  Salem 
Allen  in  the  afternoon.  Eight  preachers 
were  stationed  at  this  Conference.  We 
would  like  to  have  seen  them  set  out 
from  Lynn  on  that  Monday  morning 
for  their  fields.  We  would  especially  like 
to  have  been  Jesse  Lee's  traveling  compan- 
ion, a  year  later,  when  from  the  same  place 
he  set  out  to  open  new  fields  in  Maine, 
Vermont,  and  New  Hampshire,  but  we 
were  not  then  able  to  "move  on"  with  him. 
When  in  Lynn,  Lee  was  accustomed  fre- 


94 


Jesse  Lee 


quently  to  visit  the  schools  and  talk  with 
the  children.  One  day  he  wrote  for  a  girl, 
recently  converted,  the  following  lines: 

As  Sally  is  my  given  name, 
And  happiness  is  still  my  aim, 
I  now  resolve,  live  where  I  may, 
I'll  ever  strive  to  watch  and  pray. 

This  piece  of  paper,  treasured  with  great 
care,  was  presented  by  that  girl,  then  Mrs. 
Sally  Mansfield,  aged  nearly  eighty  years, 
to  the  pastor  of  the  South  Street  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  Lynn,  Rev.  Dr.  Daniel 
Steele,  in  1854,  by  whom  it  was  presented 
to  the  New  England  Methodist  Historical 
Society. 

In  Boston  it  was  hard  to  procure  a  place 
to  preach  in,  and  the  Word  took  but  little 
hold  on  the  minds  of  the  hearers,  but  as 
soon  as  Lee  began  to  preach  in  Lynn  the 
Word  had  a  powerful  effect  on  the  hearers, 
who  flocked  to  hear  by  hundreds.  It  soon 
appeared  that  Lynn  was  the  place  that 
should  be  attended  to,  in  preference  to  any 
other. 

The  society  in  Lynn  determined  on  build- 
ing a  Methodist  meetinghouse,  which  'they 
began  on  the  14th  of  June,  raised  on  the 
2ist,  and  dedicated  on  the  26th,  1791.  This 
was  the  first  regular  permanent  society  that 


Invited  to  Lynn  95 


was  formed  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
and  the  first  meetinghouse  that  was  ever 
built  for  the  Methodists  in  the  State.  From 
that  time  rehgion  continued  to  prosper  in 
Lynn  for  many  months  without  declension. 

It  was  well  that  Benjamin  Johnson  invited 
Jesse  Lee  to  Lynn.  In  1791  "Boston"  Sta- 
tion was  changed  to  "Lynn"  Station  in 
the  Minutes. 


CHAPTER  XII 


PIONEERING  IN  MAINE 

The  second  Conference  in  New  England 
also  was  held  in  Lynn.  Asbury  reached 
Lynn  on  Monday,  July  29,  1793.  The  Con- 
ference closed  Sunday,  August  4.  An 
original  copy  of  the  Minutes  of  1793,  now 
before  me,  reads:  "100,"  the  number  of  the 
station,  "Province  of  Maine  and  Lynn, 
Jesse  Lee."  "Ezekiel  Cooper,  Elder,"  is 
in  the  margin.  For  some  reason  Lee  did 
not  hasten  to  Maine.  It  is  said  that  he  was 
so  attached  to  Lynn  that  he  hated  to  leave 
it,  to  rough  it  again,  and  that  his  friends 
had  to  urge  him  to  set  out.  September  10 
finds  him  preaching  the  first  Methodist  ser- 
mon in  the  province,  at  Saco.  By  the  end 
of  the  year  he  had  visited  Castine,  the 
upper  settlements  of  the  Penobscot  River 
near  Old  Town,  Twenty-five-Mile  Pond,  up 
Sandy  River,  back  to  Hallowell,  thence  to 
Portland.  He  made  his  own  appointments 
and  preached  almost  every  day.  He  formed 
the  Readfield  Circuit,  which  extended  from 
Hallowell  to  Sandy  River,  and  was  two 
96 


Pioneering  in  Maine  97 

hundred  miles  from  any  other  circuit.  The 
first  sermons  preached  on  the  circuit  were : 
October  13,  in  Hallowell;  15th,  Farming- 
ton;  17th,  Sandy  River;  17th,  New  Sharon; 
i8th,  Mount  Vernon;  19th,  Readfield;  21st, 
Winthrop;  22d,  IMonmouth. 

In  1794  we  trace  his  steps  to  Sydney, 
Fayette,  Livermore,  Wayne,  Chesterville, 
Jay,  Vassalborough,  Harlem,  Winslow, 
Norridgewock,  Canaan,  Clinton,  Fairfield, 
Green,  New  Vineyard,  Strong,  Avon,  Leeds, 
Lewistown,  Starks,  and  Anson,  where  we 
find  him  on  December  4.  He  formed  the 
first  class  meeting  in  Maine  in  Monmouth, 
"about  the  first  of  November,  1794;  the 
second  at  Readfield,  a  short  time  after." 
The  first  meetinghouse  was  built  at  Read- 
field,  and  was  covered  in  in  December, 
1794;  the  second  in  Monmouth,  in  1795. 
The  first  two  sacramental  services  in  the 
province  were  at  Readfield,  December  14, 
1794,  and  at  Monmouth,  on  Christmas  Day, 
1794. 

On  August  29,  1798,  the  first  Conference 
in  Maine  was  held  in  Readfield,  Ten  travel- 
ing preachers  and  about  two  hundred  com- 
municants were  present.  The  Portland  Cir- 
cuit, formed  early  in  1795,  was  the  second 
in  Maine.    Here  was  preached  the  first 


98  Jesse  Lee 


Methodist  sermon,  September  12,  1793, 
and  the  first  class  formed,  October,  1795. 
The  Penobscot  was  the  third  circuit  in 
Maine.  It  included  both  sides  of  the  Pe- 
nobscot River.  A  great  revival  broke  out  on 
this  circuit  in  the  summer  of  1797,  in  which 
sinners  were  struck  helpless  to  the  floor  and 
Christians  lost  their  strength.  Bath  Cir- 
cuit was  formed  in  1796.  Bath  did  not  at 
first  yield  to  Methodism,  which  was  intro- 
duced there  September  15,  1793.  Disputes 
about  the  settled  minister  were  the  cause. 
In  Union,  the  other  part  of  the  circuit, 
religion  prospered  from  the  beginning. 
Thomaston  did  not  take  kindly  to  Meth- 
odism at  the  first.  Kennebeck  Circuit  was 
organized  in  1796,  and  Pleasant  River  in 
1797.  These  were  later  called  Norridge- 
wock  and  Union  River  Circuits.  Bethel 
Circuit  was  formed  in  1800,  with  great 
difficulty  and  hardships. 

At  the  Conferences  of  1794  and  1795 
Mr.  Lee  was  appointed  elder  of  Massa- 
chusetts, New  Hampshire,  and  Maine.  In 
1795  he  crossed  the  border  line  and  entered 
New  Brunswick.  At  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  October,  1796,  Conference  bound- 
aries were  made.  The  whole  work  was 
divided  into  six  Conferences. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


ALMOST  A  BISHOP 

With  New  England  added  to  the  Middle 
and  South  Atlantic  States,  the  work  had 
become  too  great  for  the  superintendence 
of  Bishop  Asbury,  who,  because  of  the 
frequent  absences  from  the  States  of  Dr. 
Coke,  was  much  of  the  time  alone.  He 
appealed  for  help.  At  the  General  Confer- 
ence in  Baltimore,  October  20,  1796,  it 
was  moved  "to  strengthen  the  episcopacy 
in  a  way  which  should  be  agreeable  to  Mr. 
Asbury."  Mr.  Lee  saw  that  this  was  giv- 
ing too  much  power  to  one  man,  and  be- 
lieved it  to  be  the  business  of  the  General 
Conference  to  elect  helpers  for  Asbury. 
Lee  was  outvoted,  but  Dr.  Coke  promis- 
ing to  remain  in  the  country  the  matter 
dropped.  Dr.  Coke  did  not  stay  in  Amer- 
ica long,  and  the  need  of  help  grew  greater. 
Asbury  had  known  and  watched  Lee  from 
the  beginning.  His  work  in  New  England 
delighted  him.  He  wanted  Lee  for  his 
assistant. 

The  year  1797  was  so  strenuous  for  As- 
99 


100  Jesse  Lee 


bury  that  on  September  12  he  wrote  Lee 
asking  him  to  attend  the  Conference  at 
Wilbraham,  Massachusetts,  for  him,  then, 
to  go  on  to  Georgia,  liolston,  and  Kentucky 
■ — in  fact,  to  assist  him  anywhere  he  might 
need  him.  Asbury's  plan  was  to  have  the 
Wilbraham  Conference  elect  three  assistant 
bishops.  His  chosen  ones  were  Whatcoat, 
Poythress,  and  Lee.  He  told  Lee  that  his 
brethren  in  Virginia  wanted  Liin  to  assist 
him.  The  assistants  were  to  be  ordained. 
Had  this  carried,  the  office  of  assistant 
bishop  would  have  been  created.  Lee  pre- 
sided at  Wilbraham  with  great  acceptance 
to  the  preachers.  He  then  joined  Asbury 
at  New  Rochelle,  New  York,  and  they  went 
on  to  the  Philadelphia  Conference,  which 
unanimously  voted  that  Lee  assist  Asbury. 
They  then  both  went  South. 

In  November  Dr.  Coke,  who  meanwhile 
had  returned  to  England,  suddenly  reap- 
peared in  America.  Asbury  and  Lee  met 
him  November  17,  riding  a  small  horse, 
with  a  boy  behind  him.  Coke  had  come 
from  England  with  the  request  that  he  be 
released  from  all  work  in  America.  They 
agreed  to  meet  at  the  Conference,  Novem- 
ber 25.  This  Conference  voted  Asbury  a 
rest  until  the  Conference  at  Charleston, 


Almost  a  Bishop  101 


January  i,  1798,  and  that  Lee  should  mean- 
while fill  Asbury's  appointments.  This 
meant  for  Lee  nearly  five  hundred  miles 
to  travel  and  twenty-five  appointments  to 
fill  on  the  journey,  and  all  within  a  little 
more  than  four  weeks.  At  Charleston  he 
was  delighted  with  the  progress  made  dur- 
ing the  thirteen  years  of  his  absence.  He 
remained  in  the  South  assisting  Asbury 
until  April,  when  he  started  for  New  Eng- 
land. His  brother  John  went  with  him  as 
far  as  New  York,  where  they  parted,  to 
meet  no  more  on  earth. 

July  20  finds  Lee  again  in  New  London, 
Connecticut;  August  28,  at  Readfield, 
Maine;  September  19,  at  the  Conference  in 
Granville,  Massachusetts.  From  this  Con- 
ference he  again  goes  South  with  Asbury. 
They  reached  the  Hudson,  seven  miles 
above  New  York,  September  28;  then  on 
to  Burlington,  New  Jersey,  to  Maryland, 
the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia. 

The  year  1799  was  spent  assisting  As- 
bury, doing  all  the  work  of  a  bishop  except 
ordaining  and  fixing  the  appointments. 
They  spent  most  of  the  year  in  the  South- 
land. For  three  years  Lee  had  been  assist- 
ing Asbury,  with  acceptance  to  the  preach- 
ers.  The  General  Conference  was  to  meet 


102  Jesse  Lee 


at  Baltimore  in  May,  1800.  Mr.  Lee  natu- 
rally expected  there  to  be  elected  to  the 
office  of  bishop;  he  never  called  it  an 
"order."  He  had  had  a  good  training  for 
this  office,  and  Asbury  wanted  him  to  be 
elected.  At  the  Virginia  Conference,  in 
April,  Lee  noticed  that  one  tried  hard  to 
keep  the  preachers  from  going  to  General 
Conference.  Who  that  "certain  person" 
was  he  does  not  say,  nor  does  he  name  the 
one  who,  at  the  next  Conference  he  met, 
tried  to  have  the  preachers  attend.  Evi- 
dently ecclesiastical  politics  was  suspected. 
Asbury  must  now  have  help  or  resign.  The 
Conference  voted  to  elect  a  bishop.  The 
choice  was  between  Richard  Whatcoat  and 
Jesse  Lee.  Whatcoat  had  been  sent  to 
America  with  Coke  in  1784.  He  was  older 
and  had  been  longer  in  the  ministry  than 
Lee.  He  was  in  every  way  worthy  of  the 
office.  On  the  first  ballot  there  was  no 
choice ;  the  second  was  a  tie ;  on  the  third 
ballot  Whatcoat,  by  a  majority  of  four 
votes,  was  elected  bishop.  Doubtless  a 
false  report  that  Lee  had  imposed  his  serv- 
ices on  Asbury  for  eighteen  months  past, 
which   Asbury   denied,   and   which  was 

traced  to  "T          L  ,  and  he  did  not 

clear  himself,"  cost  Lee  votes.  Probably 


Almost  a  Bishop  103 


some  thought  Lee  too  witty  to  be  a  bishop. 
When  told  of  this  Lee  said,  "It  would  be  un- 
natural to  assume  the  gravity  of  the  office 
previous  to  receiving  it;  put  me  in  it,  and 
I  will  sustain  its  dignity." 

Of  course,  Mr.  Lee  was  disappointed,  but 
he  was  not  soured.  On  the  day  of  What- 
coat's  ordination  Lee  preached  in  the 
]\Iarket  House.  He  says :  "The  power  of  the 
Lord  came  down  among  us  while  I  was 
preaching,  and  the  people  wept  and  roared 
aloud,  and  prayed  most  earnestly."  Seven 
souls  were  won  at  that  service.  Asbury  was 
disappointed.  He  asked  Lee  to  assist  the 
bishops,  who  could  not  do  all  the  work,  and 
told  him  that  if  he  would  not  consent  he 
(Asbury)  would  be  forced  to  resign  the 
bishopric  at  the  close  of  the  Conference. 
At  the  Conference  in  New  York,  June  21, 
Lee  whites: 

"We  sat  in  Conference  again,  and  the 
bishop  put  a  few  lines  privately  into  my 
hand,  which  I  here  transcribe  verbatim: 

"Jesse  Lee  is  appointed  to  act  as  an  assistant  to 
the  bishops  at  the  yearly  Conferences,  and  to  aid 
the  book  interest  in  every  part  of  the  continent 
where  he  goes. 

"Dear  Brother:  We  wish  to  close  the  minutes 
in  York,  if  we  can;  you  must  have  some  place 


104  Jesse  Lee 


therein:  will  the  above  do?  York  will  be  a  blank 
at  present;  if  you  choose  to  stay  until  you  think 
it  meet  to  go  down  South,  you  may;  and  more, 
you  may  make  your  own  appointments  South,  and 
omit  going  eastward,  or  go  if  you  choose  to  the 
East,  or  if  you  choose  you  may  come  to  Kentucky. 

"Francis  Asbury, 
"Richard  Whatcoat. 

"Saturday  morning. 

"I  then  wrote  them  a  few  lines,  and  in- 
formed them  that  I  did  not  feel  at  liberty 
to  take  the  appointment,  or  to  travel  at 
large,  but  if  I  had  any  choice  it  was,  after 
making  a  visit  to  the  East,  to  take  a  single 
circuit." 

The  bishops'  offer  shows  the  esteem 
they  had  for  him,  and  their  confidence  in 
his  ability  and  loyalty.  The  rest  of  that 
year,  June  to  December,  1800,  he  spent 
touring  in  New  England,  once  going  over 
into  Canada,  preaching  the  gospel  and  sav- 
ing souls,  though  not  elected  to  the  epis- 
copacy. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


NEW  ENGLAND  REVISITED 

The  first  year  of  his  absence  from  New 
England,  1801,  was  begun  in  New  York. 
In  March  he  was  appointed  presiding  elder 
of  the  South  District  of  Virginia.  This 
was  not  his  choice.  He  preferred  a  cir- 
cuit. He  mourns  that  only  several  dozens 
had  been  converted  on  the  district  that  year. 
He  was  reappointed  in  March,  1802.  The 
quarterly  meetings  that  year  were  marked 
by  revivals.  He  was  continued  on  the  dis- 
trict in  1803,  the  year  when  camp  meetings 
were  adopted  by  IMethodists,  after  the  ex- 
ample of  the  Presbyterians,  among  whom 
they  originated.  At  Lee's  first  camp  meeting 
about  three  thousand  were  present.  Twenty- 
nine  Methodist  preachers  were  there,  and 
about  thirty-five  souls  were  converted. 
Camp  meetings  appealed  to  Jesse  Lee. 

In  1804  he  returned  to  circuit  work  at 
Williamsburg.  He  attended  General  Con- 
ference at  Baltimore  this  year,  and  also 
began  to  write  the  life  of  his  brother.  In 
1805  he  was  appointed  to  the  ]\Iecklenburg 
105 


106  Jesse  Lee 


Circuit.  The  next  year  finds  him  on  the 
AmeHa  Circuit.  His  journals  show  a  very 
busy  year,  and  some  peculiar  cases  of  con- 
version. In  1807  he  was  given  a  roving 
commission.  He  went  South  to  Georgia, 
preaching  as  he  went.  In  April  we  find 
him  among  the  ruins  of  Whitefield's  orphan- 
house,  in  Savannah.  He  had  not  seen  it 
for  seven  years.  He  considered  that  many 
thousands  of  dollars  had  been  wasted 
there,  and  that  Whitefield  did  not  do  wisely 
in  leaving  that  institution  to  Lady  Hunting- 
don. He  left  Georgia  on  December  4,  and 
reentered  South  Carolina,  stopping  at  Co- 
lumbia with  Brother  Harrison.  Conference 
met  at  Charleston,  December  28. 

On  January  4,  1808,  he  set  out  for  Vir- 
ginia. He  reached  the  Conference  at 
Lynchburg,  February  i.  Here  he  was  ap- 
pointed to  Cumberland  Circuit,  Virginia, 
where  he  labored  until  April  3,  when  he 
went  to  the  General  Conference  at  Balti- 
more. He  now  began  to  work  in  earnest  on 
his  History  of  Methodism.  After  General 
Conference,  which  closed  May  26,  he,  on 
May  31,  left  Baltimore  for  his  long-contem- 
plated second  visit  to  New  England.  If 
this  were  a  book  instead  of  a  booklet,  we 
could  picture  his  almost  daily  doings  dur- 


New  Ejigland  Revisited  107 


ing  this,  to  him,  dehghtful  visit  to  the 
scenes  of  his  pioneering  travels  in  New 
England.  We  must  be  content  with  simply 
naming  places  visited,  in  the  order  laid 
down  in  his  journals.  He  started  from 
Baltimore,  May  31,  1808,  and  got  back  to 
his  relatives  in  Petersburg,  December  9, 
after  an  absence  from  them  of  about  eight 
months. 

From  Baltimore  he  went  through  New 
Jersey  to  New  York,  which  he  reached 
June  19.  As  he  went  he  preached.  He 
visited  a  camp  meeting  at  Penn's  Neck,  and 
disapproved  the  ceremonies  he  found  there. 
He  would  not  march  around  with  them  at 
the  closing  services.  He  preached  at  Mount 
Holly,  New  Mills,  Allentown,  New  Bruns- 
wick, and  Newark,  in  New  Jersey.  He 
spent  seven  days  in  New  York  city,  where 
he  preached  nine  sermons.  He  then  went 
to  camp  meeting  at  Cow-Harbour,  where 
he  took  a  sloop,  crossed  the  Sound,  and 
landed  in  New  England  again  at  Norwich, 
Connecticut.  Nearly  twenty  years  before 
this  he  first  entered  New  England  friend- 
less, and  to  endure  hardships;  now  he 
receives  a  royal  welcome,  almost  an  ova- 
tion, wherever  he  goes.  Seven  days  are 
spent  in  Connecticut,  at  Norwich  Stratfield, 


108  Jesse  Lee 


Stratford,  New  Haven,  New  London,  then 
back  to  Norwich. 

On  Saturday,  July  9,  he  enters  Rhode 
Island.  Cranston,  Providence,  Bristol, 
Newport,  and  Portsmouth  are  visited.  At 
Newport  he  is  shocked  to  see  a  Methodist 
meetinghouse  with  a  steeple,  a  bell,  and 
large  square  pews,  and  male  and  female 
worshipers  sitting  together.  "Is  not  this  a 
violation  of  Methodist  rules?"  he  asks. 

On  Thursday,  July  21,  he  reached  Boston. 
The  next  day  he  preached  in  the  "new  meet- 
inghouse" on  Bromfield  Street,  of  which  he 
says:  "It  has  an  altar  round  the  pulpit,  in 
a  half  circle,  and  the  house  is  fixed  with 
long  pews  of  a  circular  form,  to  be  uniform 
with  the  altar.  The  front  of  the  gallery  is 
of  the  same  form.  It  looks  very  handsome, 
and  will  contain  an  abundance  of  people, 
but  it  is  not  on  the  Methodist  plan,  for  the 
pews  are  sold  to  the  highest  bidder."  On 
Saturday  afternoon  he  went  to  Lynn.  John 
Broadhead  entertained  him.  He  preached 
to  his  old  friends  on  Sunday.  They  wept 
together  as  they  talked  of  his  first  visit  to 
Lynn ;  they  were  tears  of  joy.  "I  have  not 
been  so  well  pleased  for  a  long  time,  at 
meeting  my  old  friends,  as  I  was  at  this 
place,"  Lee  writes. 


New  England  Revisited  109 


On  July  29  he  sets  out  from  Lynn  to 
revisit  Maine,  via  Portsmouth,  New  Hamp- 
shire, where  he  preaches  in  a  steepled, 
belled,  and  pewed  Universalist  meeting- 
house which  the  Methodists  are  about  to 
buy.  July  30  finds  him  again  in  the  Prov- 
ince of  Maine.  York,  Kennebeck,  Glou- 
cester, Monmouth,  Winthrop,  Lincolnville, 
Orrington,  and  Hampden  are  visited  in 
order.  Here  he  was  a  thousand  miles  from 
home,  toward  which  he  now  turns,  on 
August  22.  On  his  return  journey  he  visits 
Twenty-five-Mile  Pond,  in  Unity,  Fair- 
field, and  Farmington.  Here  fifteen  years 
before,  he  was  the  first  Methodist  they  had 
seen;  now  (in  1808)  he  finds  nine  local 
preachers  here  and  meets  about  a  hundred 
at  the  Comnnmion  services.  Vienna,  Strong, 
Jay,  Livermore,  Readfield,  Durham,  Port- 
land, and  Scarborough  are  visited  in  order. 
He  spent  forty-three  days  in  Maine,  where 
he  preached  forty-seven  sermons  and  "had 
seen  very  few  dry  or  barren  meetings.  The 
visit  was  the  most  profitable  and  pleasing 
of  any  I  had  ever  made  in  that  part  of  the 
world,"  he  writes. 

Five  days  are  now  spent  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, at  Poplin,  Sandown,  and  Plastow, 
where  he  preached  the  last  of  his  seven 


no 


Jesse  Lee 


sermons  in  that  State.  On  Wednesday, 
September  14,  he  is  back  in  Lynn.  From 
Friday,  i6th,  until  the  19th,  he  preached 
and  visited  in  Boston,  then  on  to  Waltham, 
Ware,  and  Wilbraham.  Sunday,  25th,  he 
is  in  Hartford,  preaching  in  the  old  play- 
house. After  six  days  in  Connecticut  he 
leaves  New  England  forever,  on  Friday, 
September  30,  1808.  Passing  through  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  Wash- 
ington, where  he  visited  Congress  for  a 
few  days,  he  reached  home  and  friends  in 
Petersburg,  December  9.  This  whole  trip 
was  a  great  joy  to  him  and  was  fraught 
with  blessings  to  his  old  New  England 
friends,  and  to  many  others  who  were  con- 
verted and  edified  by  his  sermons. 


CHAPTER  XV 


CIRCUIT  PREACHER  AND  GENERAL 
CONFERENCE  DELEGATE 

When  an  English  Wesleyan  Methodist 
preacher  retires  he  is  said  to  "sit  down." 
On  his  return  from  New  England  to  his 
native  country  Jesse  Lee  began  to  prepare 
to  "sit  down"  by  buying  an  estate  near  his 
father's  house.  He  had  been  twenty-six 
years  in  the  itinerancy.  These  had  been 
years  of  incessant  travel  and  toil,  and  of 
much  privation.  They  were  relieved  by 
occasional  visits  to  his  father's  house,  which 
shows  him  to  have  been  quite  a  "home 
body,"  though  a  bachelor.  On  one  of  these 
visits  he  had  the  singular  experience  of  bap- 
tizing his  youngest  half-sister,  only  a  few 
months  old,  in  the  presence  of  his  eldest 
sister,  then  fifty-five  years  old,  and  of  his 
father,  then  seventy-five  years  old,  and  his 
third  wife,  the  mother  of  the  child. 

Early  in  1809  Jesse  Lee  bought  a  farm 
for  four  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  He 
could  only  pay  down  two  hundred  dollars 
in  cash,  and  promise  to  pay  the  remainder  in 
III 


112 


Jesse  Lee 


four  years.  Though  he  had  been  the  means 
of  making  many  rich  toward  God,  he  was 
himself  poor  in  this  world's  goods,  but  he 
hoped  to  end  his  days  there  in  quiet,  but 
not  yet.  In  February  he  went  to  the  Con- 
ference in  Tarborough,  North  Carolina, 
and  was  appointed  to  the  Brunswick  Cir- 
cuit, in  Virginia,  to  which  he  at  once  went. 
In  1810  he  was  made  presiding  elder  of  the 
Meharrin  District.  In  181 1  he  took  the 
Amelia  Circuit  and  also  labored  on  the 
Petersburg  Station.  The  year  1812  finds 
him  in  Richmond  Station;  1813,  on  the 
Brunswick  Circuit  again ;  18 14,  on  the  Cum- 
berland and  Manchester  Circuit. 

At  Richmond,  in  summer,  he  constantly 
preached  four  times  on  each  Sabbath,  at 
least  once  in  the  open  air.  A  hearer  says 
of  his  preaching  at  that  time :  "When  Mr. 
Lee  commences  his  sermon  it  always  re- 
minds me  of  the  hoisting  of  the  flood  gate 
of  a  mill ;  there  is  one  incessant  pouring  of 
the  sweetest  eloquence  I  ever  heard  from 
any  man  in  my  life."  He  preached  at  the 
Virginia  Conference  in  Newburn,  North 
Carolina,  in  1813,  from  the  text,  "These 
that  have  turned  the  world  upside  down 
are  come  hither  also"  (Acts  17.  6).  His 
three  propositions  were:  "I.    That  when 


Circuit  Preacher 


113 


God  made  the  world  he  placed  it  right  side 
up.  II.  That  by  the  introduction  of  sin 
it  had  been  'turned  upside  down.'  And, 
III.  It  is  the  business  of  the  ministry  to 
turn  it  back  again  to  its  original  position." 
The  interest  in  that  sermon  was  seen  next 
morning,  when  in  all  parts  of  the  town 
things  were  turned  upside  down.  Carriages 
and  other  vehicles  were  bottom  up;  boats 
were  lying  on  land,  keel  up;  small  houses, 
signs,  boxes,  gates,  all  out  of  fix.  When 
the  doers  were  reproved  they  said,  "Didn't 
the  preacher  say  they  were  the  men  that 
'turned  the  world  upside  down,'  and  had 
■  they  not  come  here  to  put  the  town  'right 
side  up'?" 

His  tact  in  handling  men  is  seen  in  an 
event  of  September,  1812.    Many  sailors 
were  driven  to  the  coast  to  escape  English 
cruisers  during  the  war.   Among  these  was 
ka  Captain  Swift,  who  with  his  drunken 
'  sailors  went  to  a  camp  ground  near  James 
River,  below  Richmond.    They  were  bent 
on  a  row  with  the  preachers,  who  had  gone 
j  to  bed.    Jesse  Lee  awoke  some  preachers 
I  and  went  out  among  the  sailors,  and  up  into 
'  the  preachers'  stand,  and  told  the  sailors  if 
they  would  come  near  they  should  have  a 
sermon.  Lee  set  the  Rev.  P.  Courtenay  to 


1 14  Jesse  Lee 


^  preach.  His  text  was,  "At  midnight  Pau 
and  Silas  prayed,  and  sang  praises  to  God.' 
The  weird  Hghts,  the  hush  of  night,  and  thi 
voice  of  the  preacher,  aided  by  the  arden- 
spirits  within  them,  put  the  sailors  to  sleep 
When  all  slept  Mr.  Lee  pulled  the  preacher'; 
coat  tails,  and  said,  "Stop;  let's  go  to  bed.' 
The  sailors  woke  in  the  morning  stifif  witl' 
cold  and  full  of  chagrin;  they  escaped  be- 
fore the  time  for  morning  service. 

The  first  delegated  General  Conference 
met  in  1812.  It  was  composed  of  twc 
bishops  and  ninety  delegates.  It  representee 
the  eight  Conferences  then  existing.  Con- 
ferences were  appointed  both  as  to  time 
place,  and  territory  by  the  bishops  alont 
until  1796.  Then  the  work  was  divided 
into  six  Conferences,  and  provision  was 
made  for  one  in  Maine,  if  necessary.  In- 
dependent rights  were  then  granted  to  each 
Conference.  In  1800  the  New  York  Con- 
ference was  made  of  portions  of  the  New 
England  and  Philadelphia  Conferences.  Ir 
1809  Genesee  Conference  was  added,  mak- 
ing the  eight  represented  at  the  Genera] 
Conference  in  1812. 

The  General  Conferences  before  this  date 
were  made  up  of  all  preachers  who  wished 
to  attend.    Jesse  Lee  led  the  delegation  of 


Circuit  Preacher  1 1 5 


eleven  from  the  Virginia  Conference.  In 
i8o8  he  had  seven  votes  for  bishop,  Ezekiel 
Cooper  twenty-eight,  and  Wilham  Mc- 
Kendree  ninety-five.  Lee's  friends  thought 
he  had  a  good  prospect  of  election  in  1812. 
Both  Bishops  Asbury  and  McKendree  de- 
sired more  bishops  should  be  elected  to  help 
them,  but  the  committee,  who  it  is  thought 
feared  Lee  would  be  chosen,  reported  un- 
advisable  to  elect  any.  Ezekiel  Cooper  and 
Early  tried  to  amend  the  report,  but  did 
not  succeed.  No  bishops  were  elected. 
This  was  his  last  General  Conference  as 
delegate.  He  was  an  interested  visitor  in 
1816.  His  biographers  think  his  political 
opponents  prevented  his  election  that  year. 

Mr.  Lee  was  a  zealous  advocate  of  the 
election  of  presiding  elders  by  their  breth- 
ren. This  question  stirred  the  Church  from 
1800  to  1828,  when  it  was  sidetracked  by 
other  questions,  but  it  has  never  been  per- 
manently downed.  Asbury  was  strongly 
opposed  to  it.  He  once  turned  his  back 
toward  the  debaters.  When  Lee  rose  to 
answer  his  opponent  he  said :  "Mr.  Presi- 
dent, Brother  has  said  that  no  man  of 

common  sense  would  have  used  such  argu- 
ments as  I  did.  I  am  therefore,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, compelled  to  believe  the  brother  thinks 


116 


Jesse  L'ie 


me  a  man  of  uncommon  sense."  "Yes,  yes. 
Brother  Lee,"  said  Bishop  Asbury,  turning 
half  around  in  his  chair,  "yes,  yes,  Brother 
Lee,  you  are  a  man  of  uncommon  sense." 
"Then,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Lee,  very  quickly  and 
pleasantly,  "then  I  beg  that  uncommon  at- 
tention may  be  paid  to  what  I  am  about  to 
say."  But  the  bishop  resumed  his  face-to- 
the-wall  position,  and  amid  a  general  smile 
Mr.  Lee  proceeded  with  his  remarks. 

Mr.  Lee  opposed  admitting  local  deacons 
to  elder  orders.  In  the  debate  the  Rev. 
Asa  Shinn  reminded  Lee  that  an  elder 
should  "rule  well  his  own  family,"  and  that 
he,  Lee,  had  promised  to  do  this,  but,  being 
a  bachelor,  he  had  no  family  to  rule.  This 
shot  at  Lee's  single  blessedness  evoked  a 
laugh  at  Lee's  expense,  but  he  himself 
seemed  greatly  to  enjoy  the  joke.  Mr.  Lee 
was  the  author  of  the  third  Restrictive 
Rule.  He  proved  himself  a  great  legislator 
at  Conference  as  well  as  pioneer  on  the 
field. 

We  must  not  omit  the  fact  that  our  hero 
at  least  once  showed  that  he  was  of  the 
earth.  In  1815  he  certainly  did  refuse  to 
go  to  his  appointment.  That  he  was  after- 
ward sorry  for  this  shows  that  he  was  not 
altogether  blameless.    To  his  surprise  his 


Circuit  Preacher  117 


name  was  not  read  off  at  the  Virginia  Con- 
ference in  Lynchburg,  in  February,  1815. 
A  footnote  said,  "Jesse  Lee  will  receive  his 
appointment  at  the  Baltimore  Conference." 
Lee  asked,  "Is  that  right  ?"  He  was  trans- 
ferred without  his  consent  and  later  ap- 
pointed at  Fredericksburg.  He  never  went. 
Leroy  ^l.  Lee  writes  up  the  details  of  this, 
on  page  490.  Jesse  Lee  thought  his  sudden 
transfer  was  brought  about  to  prevent  his 
election  to  the  General  Conference  of  1816. 
li  so,  it  succeeded.  As  we  read  such 
things  we  conclude  that  ecclesiastical  politics 
is  not  a  new  science,  and  we  are  sure  it  is 
not  from  above,  but  is  earthly,  sensual,  and 
devilish,  and  that  the  sooner  it  is  driven 
down  to  its  own  place  the  better  for  the 
Church,  and  for  the  world  which  the  Church 
is  sent  to  save. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


AUTHOR,  AND  CHAPLAIN  TO  CONGRESS 

In  1805  Mr.  Lee  entered  the  field  of 
authorship  by  writing  the  hfe  of  his  brother, 
the  Rev.  John  Lee.  He  was  twelve  years 
younger  than  Jesse,  having  been  born 
March  12,  1770.  He  was  converted  July 
13,  1787,  in  his  eighteenth  year.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1788,  he  became  a  traveling 
preacher,  under  his  brother's  care,  on  the 
Flanders  Circuit,  In  1789  we  find  him 
again  with  his  brother  in  Connecticut,  help- 
ing in  the  well-begun  work  in  New  England. 
After  a  faithful  and  successful  ministry  he 
died  October  6,  1801.  The  details  of  his 
death  show  his  unfaltering  trust  and  readi- 
ness to  depart.  Bishops  Whatcoat  and  As- 
bury  preached  funeral  sermons  for  him. 
His  brother  Jesse  wrote  his  life,  but  did  not 
publish  it  until  1805.  It  is  a  small  book,  of 
only  180  pages,  and  of  the  size  of  an  early 
Discipline,  but  it  seems  to  have  taken  the 
author  from  the  spring  until  the  autumn 
to  get  it  through  the  press.  As  most  of  it 
is  extracts  from  his  brother's  journals,  the 


Author,  and  Chaplain  to  Congress  1 19 

personal  pronoun  "I"  often  occurs.  The 
printer  does  not  seem  to  have  been  over- 
stocked with  that  letter.  The  author  dryly- 
remarked  in  the  office,  one  day,  that  he  had 
"put  out  all  the  printer's  I's."  To  spend 
nearly  four  years  writing  this  little  book, 
and  about  nine  months  getting  it  through  the 
press,  indicates  the  slow  processes  of  those 
days.  This  work  did  not  make  Jesse  Lee 
famous  as  an  author. 

His  next  book,  though  unappreciated  by 
his  brethren,  has  put  every  historian  of 
American  IVIethodism  under  lasting  obliga- 
tions to  him.  Its  title  is,  A  Short  History 
of  the  Methodists.  A  small  book  of  366 
pages,  it  is  now  exceedingly  scarce.  It  was 
published  in  Baltimore  in  1810.  This  book 
made  him  the  first  American  Methodist 
historian.  What  it  lacks  in  literary  style 
and  quality  is  more  than  made  up  in  the 
facts  which  he  has  accumulated  and  placed 
in  order.  We  know  of  no  other  in  that  day, 
save,  perhaps.  Bishop  Asbury,  who  was  too 
busy  making  history,  who  could  have 
written  such  a  history  of  Methodism  in 
America. 

His  third  and  last  work  as  author  was  in 
1814,  when  he  wrote  and  published  two 
sermons — one  a  funeral  sermon  on  the  death 


120  Jesse  Lee 


of  Miss  Hardy,  of  Bertie,  North  Carolina; 
the  other  on  the  duty  of  Christian  watch- 
fulness. Both  are  said  to  be  good,  "the 
latter  excellent — replete  with  sound  views 
of  the  subject,  exhibiting  a  clear  percep- 
tion of  religious  experience,  and  abound- 
ing in  just  and  solid  admonitions  as  to  the 
importance  of  the  duty,  and  the  great  danger 
of  neglecting  to  'watch  in  all  things'."  This 
was  a  favorite  subject  of  the  author,  and 
he  wrote  out  of  his  own  experience. 

In  May,  1809,  Mr.  Lee  went  from  his 
Brunswick  Circuit,  Virginia,  where  he  had 
been  since  February,  to  Baltimore,  in  order 
to  get  his  history  through  the  press.  An 
emergency  session  of  Congress  being  called, 
at  Washington,  Mr.  Lee  went  there.  He 
arrived  May  20,  two  days  before  Congress 
met.  Although  he  seems  to  have  had  no 
idea  of  doing  so  on  leaving  his  circuit,  he 
became  a  candidate  for  chaplain  to  the 
House  of  Representatives.  He  was  elected 
on  the  second  ballot  on  Saturday,  and  began 
his  work  on  Monday,  May  29,  1809.  This 
was  the  spirit  in  which  he  entered  upon 
that  high  office,  for  the  first  time  held  by 
a  Methodist:  "I  believe  my  intention  was 
pure  in  oi¥ering  for  this  place ;  and  I  must 
do  the  best  I  can  while  I  am  in  this  office. 


Author,  and  Chaplain  to  Congress  1 2 1 

I  expect  some  good  will  be  done  directly  or 
remotely.  I  wish  to  leave  all  to  God.  O 
Lord,  thou  knowest  my  heart,  thou  knowest 
that  I  desire  to  please  thee,  but  unless  thou 
wilt  stand  by  me  I  shall  labor  in  vain." 
His  success  in  this  high  office  is  seen  in  the 
fact  that  he  was  reelected  to  it  five  times, 
once  in  December,  1812,  when  he  was  not 
a  candidate.  Then,  in  December,  1814, 
he  was  elected  chaplain  to  the  United  States 
Senate,  making  seven  elections  to  the  Con- 
gresses from  May  27,  1809,  to  December, 
1814. 

It  seems  strange  to  us  of  these  later  days 
to  find  Mr.  Lee  severely  criticised  and  even 
denounced  by  his  ministerial  brethren  for 
taking  this  office.  True,  it  took  him  from 
circuit  work,  and  from  district  work  when 
he  was  presiding  elder,  but  others  could  do 
such  work  during  his  absence  on  duty  at 
Congress.  At  the  last  attack  made  upon  him 
in  Conference  his  opponent  was  the  brilliant 
young  Rev.  C.  Hines,  but  Mr.  Lee's  ready 
wit  enabled  him  to  silence  his  eloquent  oppo- 
nent. Hines's  oratory  on  this  occastion  was 
in  imitation  of  the  French  court.  He  kept 
on  addressing  Mr.  Lee  as  "Sire,"  "excellent 
Sire,"  "venerable  Sire,"  etc.  Mr.  Lee 
utterly  confounded  the  young  man  who  was 


122  Jesse  Lee 


thus  spraying  the  Conference  with  his 
oratory  at  the  expense  of  Mr.  Lee,  who 
arose  and  said,  "Bishop,  I  wish  you'd  make 
that  young  brother  quit  calKng  me  an  old 
horse!"  The  Conference  roared  with 
laughter,  and  the  young  orator  folded  his 
soaring  wings  and  dropped  into  silence.  No 
more  objections  were  made  in  Conferences 
to  Mr.  Lee's  chaplaincy. 

Mr.  Lee  did  not  enjoy  the  company  of 
his  congressional  constituency  as  he  did  that 
of  his  circuits.  Especially  ol¥ensive  were 
the  swearers.  Once  he  very  skillfully  re- 
buked such.  He  and  some  congressmen 
were  returning  to  Virginia  by  stage.  The 
stage  got  so  stuck  in  the  mud  that  all  had 
to  get  out,  and  pry  it  out.  When  they  came 
to  reenter  for  the  journey  Lee  was  missing. 
They  thought  his  two  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds  were  still  stuck  in  the  mud.  When 
he  appeared  they  joked  him  about  desert- 
ing them  in  their  distress.  He  replied,  "Ah, 
gentlemen,  I  intended  to  help  you,  but  some 
of  you  swore  so  hard  I  went  out  behind  a 
tree  and  prayed  for  you."  There  was  less 
swearing  on  the  rest  of  that  journey. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
FROM  LABOR  TO  REWARD 

On  the  fortieth  anniversary  of  his  birth- 
day he  records:  "However  strange  it  may 
appear,  so  it  is,  that  I  have  thought  that  I 
should  Hve  till  I  was  about  fifty-six  years 
old."  He  did  live  to  be  fifty-eight  years  and 
six  months  old.  All  through  his  life  he  had 
been  blessed  generally  with  good  health, 
until  the  year  1815,  when  we  find  him  ailing. 
In  January,  1816,  he  went  to  the  Virginia 
Conference  at  Raleigh,  though  determined 
to  take  his  appointment  from  Baltimore 
Conference,  to  which  he  had  been  invol- 
untarily transferred  the  year  before.  Be- 
fore going  thither  he  was  very  careful  to 
arrange  all  his  business  in  Virginia  as 
though  he  never  expected  to  return.  His 
friends  later  thought  he  must  have  been  so 
impressed.  He  never  returned.  Baltimore 
Conference  adjourned  March  15.  He  was 
appointed  to  the  city  of  Annapolis,  ]\Iary- 
land,  and  reached  his  station  on  the  27th. 

On  March  31  his  old  friend  Bishop  As- 
bury  died,  in  the  seventy-second  year  of 
133 


124  Jesse  Lee 


his  age  and  the  forty-ninth  year  of  his  min- 
istry. Mr.  Lee  paid  a  high  tribute  to  the 
character  and  worth  of  his  old  friend.  The 
General  Conference  met  that  year  in  Balti- 
more. Bishop  Asbury's  remains  were  then 
reinterred  in  Eutaw  Street  Church,  under 
the  pulpit.  Jesse  Lee  and  Minton  Thrift, 
his  biographer,  walked  together  in  the  pro- 
cession of  one  hundred  and  fifty  ministers, 
as  mourners,  on  that  occasion.  Mr.  Lee 
was  deeply  moved,  though  he  did  not  know 
that  in  about  six  months  he  would  his  body 
with  his  charge  lay  down  and  cease  at  once 
to  work  and  live. 

He  went  back  to  his  charge  at  Annapolis 
in  May.  His  first  sermon  on  going  to  this 
charge  was  from  Josh.  5.  14:  "As  captain 
of  the  host  of  the  Lord,  am  I  now  come." 
His  last  sermon  to  them  was  from  i  Cor.  15. 
33,  preached  on  the  day  of  the  last  entry  in 
his  journals,  August  15,  1816.  He  then 
went  to  camp  meeting,  near  Hillsborough, 
where  on  Thursday,  the  22d,  he  preached 
from  I  Pet.  2.  5.  On  Saturday,  the  24th,  at 
three  o'clock,  he  preached  his  last  sermon. 
His  text  was  his  favorite,  "But  grow  in 
grace."  A  chill  and  high  fever  seized  him 
soon  after  this  sermon.  His  public  work 
was  now  done. 


From  Labor  to  Reward  125 


Minton  Thrift  shall  tell  us  the  story 
of  the  end  of  the  earthly  life  of  this  man  of 
God: 

"On  Saturday  [Sunday],  the  25th,  he 
was  removed  to  Hillsborough  to  the  house 
of  Brother  Sellers,  where  every  attention, 
by  physicians  and  friends,  was  given;  but 
neither  medical  skill  nor  the  soothing  hand 
of  friendship  could  arrest  the  progress  of 
his  disease. 

"Through  the  first  part  of  his  illness  his 
mind  was  much  weighed  down,  so  that  he 
spoke  but  little.  These  were,  no  doubt,  the 
last  struggles  with  the  grand  adversary, 
and  the  sequel  will  show  the  triumphant 
manner  in  which  he  was  put  to  flight ;  for, 
on  Tuesday  night,  September  the  loth,  he 
broke  out  in  ecstasies  of  joy ;  also,  on  Wed- 
nesday, nth,  about  nine  o'clock  a.  m.,  his 
soul  was  so  overwhelmed  with  the  love  of 
God  that  he  was  constrained  to  cry  out, 
'Glory!  glory!  glory!  hallelujah!  Jesus 
reigns.'  On  the  evening  of  the  same  day 
he  spoke  nearly  twenty  minutes  deliberately 
and  distinctly;  among  other  things,  he 
directed  one  present  [the  Rev.  Henry 
Boehm] ,  who  affectionately  attended  him  in 
his  illness,  to  write  to  his  brother,  and  in- 
form him  that  he  died  happy  in  the  Lord; 


126  Jesse  Lee 


and  was  fully  satisfied  with  Brother 
Sellers's  conduct  toward  him.  'Give  my 
respects  to  Bishop  McKendree,'  said  he, 
'and  tell  him  that  I  die  in  love  with  all  the 
preachers ;  that  I  love  him,  and  that  he  lives 
in  my  heart.'  Then  he  took  leave  of  all 
present,  six  or  seven  in  number,  and 
requested  them  to  pray.  After  this  he 
spoke  but  little ;  his  work  was  done,  and  he 
was  in  waiting  for  the  summons  of  his 
Master. 

"Thursday,  the  I2th.  In  the  early  part 
of  the  day  he  lost  his  speech,  but  appeared 
still  to  retain  his  reason.  Thus  he  continued 
to  linger  till  the  same  evening  about  half 
past  seven  o'clock,  when,  without  a  sigh  or 
groan,  he  expired,  with  his  eyes  seemingly 
fixed  on  his  great  recompense  of  reward. 
Such  was  the  earthly  end  of  this  faithful 
servant  of  Christ.  'O  death,  where  is  thy 
sting  ?  O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ?'  " 
He  continues: 

"Thus  ended  the  labors  and  sufiferings  of 
this  man  of  God,  aged  fifty-eight  years  and 
six  months;  and  though  he  left  no  discon- 
solate widow  or  fatherless  orphan  to  shed 
the  tear  of  sorrow  upon  his  bier,  or  strew 
his  grave  with  flowers,  yet  he  lives  in  the 
affections  of  thousands  who  knew  him,  and 


From  Labor  to  Reward  127 


who  were  endeared  to  him  by  the  strong  ties 
of  Christian  love  and  brotherly  affection." 

Such  is  Minton  Thrift's  account  of  the 
departure  of  this  faithful  servant  of  God 
as  he  went  into  the  immediate  presence  of 
his  Master,  to  hear  him  pronounce  over 
him,  "Well  done."  Surely  Jesse  Lee,  the 
Apostle  of  New  England  Methodism,  could 
say,  with  the  greatest  of  the  apostles,  "I 
have  fought  the  good  fight,  I  have  finished 
the  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith." 

The  tabernacle  which  Jesse  Lee  put  off 
was  solemnly  laid  in  the  old  Methodist  bury- 
ing ground  on  South  Light  Street,  in  Balti- 
more. Over  his  grave  was  placed  a  plain 
marble  slab  inscribed: 

In  Memory  of 
THE  REV.  JESSE  LEE. 
Bom  in  Prince  George  County,  Va.,  1758; 
Entered  the  Itinerant  Ministry  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  1783;  and 
Departed  this  life  September,  18 16, 
Aged  58  years. 

A  man  of  ardent  zeal  and  great  ability  as  a  minister  of  Christ 

His  labors  were  abundantly  owned  of  God, 
Especially  in  the  New  England  States,  in  which  he  was  truly 
The  Apostle  of  American  Methodism. 

After  lying  there  until  1873,  Jesse  Lee's 
body,  with  those  of  about  seven  thousand 
others,  mostly  Methodists,  was  removed  to 
the  then  new  Mount  Olivet  Cemetery.  We 
once  made  a  pilgrimage  to  that  beautiful 


128  Jesse  Lee 


city  of  the  dead,  where  one  said,  there  are 
"thirty-three  acres  of  Methodists."  We 
found  it  about  two  miles  from  the  city  of 
Baltimore,  on  the  north  side  of  the  Fred- 
erick or  Catonsville  road.  In  the  Preachers' 
Lot  we  found  many  historic  and  honored 
names.  In  our  mind's  eye  is  now  seen  the 
granite  shaft,  raised  by  New  Englanders, 
which  reads  on  one  side: 

JESSE  LEE, 
Apostle  o£  Methodism 
to  New  England. 

And  on  the  other  side: 

New  England  Methodism 
Erects  this  Tribute 
to  the  Memory  of 
REV.  JESSE  LEE. 
on  the  eighty-sixth  anniversary  of 
his  first  sermon  in  Boston, 
preached  under  the  Old  Elm 
on  the  Common,  July  iith,  1790. 

Thus  indissolubly  is  New  England  linked 
with  Baltimore  Methodism,  and  the  Meth- 
odism of  the  North  is  under  everlasting 
obligation  to  the  Methodism  of  the  South 
for  this  great  gift  to  them  of  Jesse  Lee, 


DATE  DUE 


r  nW  U  L,  1 ' 

1  .  . 

 1 

 H 

GAYLORD 

